On the eve of the Victory Day a Russian Orthodox Church hierarch said the Office for the Dead at the memorial to Soviet soldiers in Croatian Ilok

On May 8, 2018, Archbishop Antoniy of Vienna and Budapest, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, visited the Croatian city of Ilok to take part in the opening of a renewed memorial to the Soviet soldiers who died there in 1944.

There were some five hundred people, among them Croatian officials, diplomats from Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Serbia, and members of public organizations.

The opening ceremony was preceded by a remembering prayer as Archbishop Antoniy said the Office for the Dead soldiers and officers who gave their lives in battles against fascist invaders.

‘When we say that we remember the feat performed by our Motherland’s soldiers who gave their lives for freedom, we should not forget that the memory as such lives as long as it finds its expression in our prayers, thoughts, feelings and concrete actions’ the archpastor said in an interview to a TASS correspondent, ‘The opening of the renewed memorial to the soldiers who died in Ilok has become one of these profoundly symbolic actions which help preserve historical memory. It is important that in the beginning of a solemn ceremony the Office for the Dead be said here for the first time in decades’.

DECR Communication Service