Russian Church Outside Russia bishop to perform Office for the Dead in memory of Russian troops in Gallipoli Peninsula
On July 16, 2011, Bishop Michael of Geneva and Western Europe will perform the Office for the Dead at the restored memorial to White Guards in the Turkish city of Gellibolu, formerly Gallipoli.
It will be the 90th anniversary since the memorial erected by the Gallipoli people was blessed in 1921. Later it was destroyed. This announcement has been made in a statement by the Union of the Russians in Gallipoli published on the website of the Russian Church Outside Russia.
‘We call upon everyone to come and prayerfully commemorate the Russians of Gallipoli and the White warriors who laid down their lives for their Faith, Tsar and Fatherland on this important anniversary’, the statement reads.
The memorial in Gellibolu was restored on May 17, 2008, the first anniversary of the reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church, in memory of the Russians who died there in the 1920s when General A. Kutepov’s army corps stayed there.
In 1920 and 1921, the Russian military units led by General P. Wrangel were accommodated there after evacuation from the Crimea. The Russian army camp in Gallipoli became the military center for the White emigration. On November 22, 1921, a Union of the Russians in Gallipoli was founded in the peninsula to become one of the most active military organizations of the Russian White Diaspora.
DECR Communication Service