War in Ukraine: the cruiser Moskva housed a relic of the Cross of Christ on board
The few millimeters of wood, acquired by anonymous patrons, were
intended to be kept in the chapel of the flagship of the Black Sea
Fleet, which sank on April 14.
Her wreck lies off Sevastopol. The flagship of
the Russian fleet in the Black Sea sank on April 14, hit according to
the Ukrainians by two of their Neptune missiles, victim of an explosion
of ammunition on board according to the Russians.
With its 186 meters in length and more than 11,000 tons of displacement, the Moskva was one of three class missile cruisers Slava owned
by the Russian fleet, and one of its largest ships. And according to
the Russian news agency TASS, the ship housed a relic of the Cross of
Christ. In a dispatch published in February 2020, the Orthodox priest
of Sevastopol Sergiy Khalyuta told the agency that the relic, “acquired by anonymous patrons», is intended to be kept in the chapel of the ship. “The relic is a wood chip only a few millimeters long“, also specifies the interlocutor, who “is embedded in a 20th century metal cross preserved itself in a reliquary“.
“supernatural power»
Was this precious relic still on board at the
time of the sinking? Were the sailors able to save this precious
treasure revered by Christians? While Russia has not provided any
information on this, Russian journalist and opposition Duma deputy
Aleksandr Nevzorov quipped on Telegram “supernatural powerof the relic that prompted the admiral officers, “convinced ofthe invulnerability of the Moskvato navigate dangerous enemy waters within range of Ukrainian missiles. “Black Sea Fleet Command Ordered to Believe in Supernatural Powerof the relic rather than inthe vessel’s detection, calculation and interception systems“, lamented the deputy.
Ukraine announced on Thursday April 21 that it
had classified the wreck of the warship in the register of underwater
cultural property. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, which refers to
the UNESCO Convention on Underwater Cultural Heritage, clarified that
the remains of the vessel have been relabeled as underwater remains No.
2064, as“rare scientific or technical equipment”.
According to Christian tradition, Saint Helena, mother of Emperor
Constantine in the 4th century, exhumed in 326 the real cross on which
Christ was crucified while she was on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Cut into
multiple fragments in Jerusalem and Constantinople, dispersed
throughout Christendom after the Crusades, the wood of the Cross is a
very widespread relic in the Middle Ages. A piece has also been
preserved since 1805 at Notre-Dame de Paris. Formerly, the
anticlericals were ironic about the forest that would constitute the
collection of the pieces of the True Cross. A scientific study has
however proved that all the fragments identified do not exceed the
quantity of wood from the crosses used by the Romans to torture
prisoners condemned to death, which does not mean that all the pieces
come from the Cross. of Christ.
