Requiem service for sailors of Arctic convoys who had died during World War II was celebrated in Iceland
On 29 July 2018, Russia’s Navy Day, the compatriots laid flowers to the Hope for Peace Monument in Reykjavik, Iceland. The monument commemorates the sailors of the Arctic convoys who died during World War II. Archpriest Tomofei Zolotussky, rector of St. Nicholas stavropegic parish of the Moscow Patriarchate, said the Office for the Dead. Among those praying at the service were parishioners from Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Serbia, Lithuania, Estonia and Iceland.
The Hope for Peace Memorial, created by a well-known Russian sculptor, Vladimir Surovtsev, was unveiled in 2005 at the initiative of Mr. Alexander Rannikh, Russia’s Ambassador to Iceland, to mark the 60th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. The monument depicts a young woman holding a head scarf in her hand, who is bidding farewell to the sailors going on a long and risky voyage in the hope of their safe return. The statue is surrounded by the semi-circular granite slabs, inscribed on which are the names of the Soviet, Icelandic, British, American, Norwegian and other vessels and ships that sank while escorting the Arctic convoys. The inscriptions are made in Russian, Icelandic and English.
Unfurled during the requiem service were the Russian Navy Ensign and the pennant of the Admiral Levchenko submarine chaser.
The same day a prayer for the repose of the soul of the Soviet seaman Alexander Malley who had died in the Icelandic hospital during the war was said at his grave in the Fossvogur cemetery in Reykjavik.
The parishioners sang “Memory Eternal” to all the soldiers buried in the land of Iceland who had laid down their lives for the faith, the homeland and the neighbors, website of St. Nicholas parish in Reykjavik reports.
DECR Communication Service