Posted on 09/25/2016 1:46:24 PM PDT by marshmallow
The influence of the Russian Orthodox Church in the country's political and social life has grown markedly in the 15 years since President Vladimir Putin came to power. But the church's intrusion into the realm of space exploration has particularly raised eyebrows.
After spending nearly nine decades forgotten in a Moscow storeroom during the Soviet era, some relics of Russian Orthodox St. Serafim of Sarov should soon be circling the globe aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
When the next mission to the ISS blasts off, a box containing a tiny relic of Serafim's body will be strapped to the chest of the commander of the Soyuz rocket, cosmonaut Sergei Ryzhikov. Russian Andrei Borisenko and American Robert Kimbrough will fill out the mission's crew.
"Many cosmonauts are believers," Father Aleksy Pestretsov, a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church's metropolitan of Nizhny Novgorod, told military channel Zvezda TV on September 16. "And when a believer sets out on a long journey -- and space is definitely a long, very difficult, and serious journey -- such a person wants somehow to brace himself physically and also spiritually."
St. Serafim's relics will perform what church officials are calling a 155-day "krestny khod," or religious procession, around the entire planet.
The saint's remains were transferred to the Zvyozdny Gorodok (Star City) cosmonaut training center outside Moscow on September 18. Liftoff from the Russian-rented Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan was initially scheduled for September 23, but the launch has been postponed at least until mid-October following a short circuit on the spacecraft.
The relic will spend 155 days orbiting Earth in a specially designated place aboard the ISS. When it returns to Russia, it will be given a place of honor at the Cathedral of the Transfiguration at Star City.
"For us cosmonauts, this.......
(Excerpt) Read more at rferl.org ...
That’s taking a big risk with Holy Relics that can never be replaced. Maybe this is being done as an act of faith in the Russian Technology.
No bias here. < / s>
Is tax money taken from us going to support this so-called 'journalism'?
Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Jewish... All voices go to God. The calls just come from different area codes.
And it sounds like Radio “Free” Europe (yes, I remember when it was needed during the Cold War) wants to hang up the phone.
With Deuteronomy 4:19 & Malachi 1:11 further in mind, I agree with you completely.
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