PANIKHIDA SERVED AT VALAAM MONASTERY FOR CHILDREN WHO DIED IN KARELIA

Pravoslavie.ru – 23/6/16

A panikhida was served at the main cathedral of the Holy Transfiguration Valaam Monastery for the repose of the children who tragically died in Karelia – a republic in north-western Russia at the border with Finland, reports the monastery’s press service. One of the monastery’s sketes will also commemorate the youths daily for forty days.

“Death is the door to eternity. People fear to open this door and even to come up to it because our physical life on earth is closely connected with this world. But each of us is due to go through this door, since we can enter into eternal life only through the door of death. And after that we will stand before the Lord’s face,” His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia reminds us.

On June 18 members of the “Park-Hotel Syamozero” children’s recreation camp who had arrived to Karelia from Moscow ran into a heavy storm on a lake in the Pryazhin district. Forty-seven children and four adult instructors were in three boats. Because of foul weather the boats turned over and sank. According to the latest information, fourteen people drowned as a result of the storm. There are no adults among the victims.

The website of the Labor and Social Protection Department of Moscow has published the list of fourteen twelve to thirteen-year-old children who died in the incident. Earlier the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Pavel Astakhov said that there were fifteen drowned children. According to more accurate information one child had not been registered at the camp.

A criminal case has been initiated according to paragraph 3 of article no. 238 of the Russian Federation’s Penal Code: “rendering of services not meeting safety requirements and entailing death of two or more people by negligence”. Five suspects have been detained.