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Believers in Moscow meet St Andrew’s Cross

The cathedral that has room for about 8,000 people was overcrowded

Photo ITAR-TASS Archive

Photo ITAR-TASS Archive

MOSCOW, July 17 (Itar-Tass) - Several thousand pilgrims and more than a hundred clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church gathered in Moscow’s downtown Cathedral of the Savior Friday afternoon to attend the arrival of a particularly venerated relic of Eastern Christianity - the Cross on which the St Apostle Andrew was crucified.

The cathedral that has room for about 8,000 people was overcrowded and that is why most believers had occupied places outside it to meet and greet the Cross.

To the signing of prayers and psalms, the relic was taken into the cathedral and installed in the center of it.

At the time of reporting, the pilgrims wishing to venerate the Cross by kissing it were queuing in a line that began more than a kilometer away from the cathedral near the Park Kultury metro station.

Public access to the cross will be ensured daily through to July 25 from 08:00 to 22:00 hours. The authorities say the queues may be prolonged towards the Luzhniki stadium if the number of pilgrims becomes especially big.

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