Translated material
The Wanderers
Today the first temple-car departs from the Yaroslavl station
A mobile railway church car dedicated to the icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria (Guide) was donated to the Russian Orthodox Church by the Ministry of Railways. Now the unusual vehicle belongs to the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra. Yesterday, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II consecrated it on the platform of the Kievsky railway station.“Several years ago, the missionary ministry of the church began to be revived. Not in foreign countries, but in our own country, we must help people find faith, a moral and spiritual core. This temple will help you find your way to God,” said the patriarch, accepting a gift from the Minister of Railways. At the same time, Nikolai Aksenenko for some reason gave Alexy II a golden key.
The mobile church consists of two carriages - the church itself and a living compartment with 18 seats, where clergy could be accommodated with the greatest possible comfort on the road (there is a kitchen and shower). The outside of the mobile church was painted by artists from the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius and Sofrino; on the sides of the carriage there are sayings from the Bible written in Church Slavonic script and there are icons of the Mother of God Hodegetria. Inside, everything is like in a real church - stained glass windows, icons, an altar, a font and even a belfry of five bells.
The church on wheels was built in just six months at the Voitovich Moscow Carriage Plant with the participation of colleagues from the Voronezh plant. On the platform during the consecration of the temple there were many factory workers who, as it turned out, came here on their own initiative. They said that this is not the first time they have built carriages on special orders and that many presidents, in particular the Kazakh and Belarusian ones, travel on the products of the Voitovich Plant, but, of course, this is the first time they have made a temple-car.
The mobile church will be sent to remote areas where there are no Orthodox churches, as well as to those dioceses that, as the Ministry of Railways said, need “urgent spiritual help.” On its first ten-day voyage, the camp church will travel along with the Vorkuta train to the southern regions of the Arkhangelsk region. The schedule includes stations Udoma, Kizema, Yurga, Kuloi - a total of 11 villages and towns. The mobile church will arrive in each locality at dawn, open its doors at 9 am, and move on at night. Patriarch Alexy II entrusted the supervision of the mobile church to Metropolitan John of Belgorod and Stary Oskol -- the Belgorod seminary has a missionary “specialization”, and in the temple The Hodegetria will be served by students and teachers of this seminary.
It should be noted that this is not the first mobile church in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. Floating churches still ply along the Volga, Ob and Amur. And the “railroad” church was built for the first time in Russia in St. Petersburg at the Putilov plant back in 1896 on the initiative of Emperor Nicholas, who thus celebrated the birth of his daughter Olga and the construction of the Great Siberian Road.