holiday

Today, at the Danilovskaya Hotel of the Moscow Patriarchate, a meeting of the organizing committee will be held to assist in holding socially significant cultural and educational events related to the celebration by the Russian Orthodox Church of the 100th anniversary of the canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov. It is planned that Russian President Vladimir Putin will take part in the celebrations, which will take place in July-August this year in Sarov (formerly Arzamas-16).
The organizing committee was created on February 25, 2003 on the basis of order #235-R, signed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. The co-chairs of the organizing committee were Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Volga Federal District Sergei Kiriyenko and Metropolitan of Minsk and Slutsk, Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus Filaret. In total, the organizing committee consists of 15 people, including the Minister of National Policy of the Russian Federation Vladimir Zorin, the First Deputy Minister of the Nuclear Industry of the Russian Federation Igor Borovkov, the Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Yuri Isaev, the Deputy Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation Andrei Ulyukaev, the Kursk and Nizhny Novgorod governors Alexander Mikhailov and Gennady Khodyrev . From parliament, the organizing committee included the chairman of the budget committee of the Federation Council, Evgeny Bushmin, and the chairman of the Duma committee on federation and regional affairs, Viktor Grishin. All federal and local executive authorities must, by order of Mikhail Kasyanov, provide assistance to the organizing committee within their competence.
Today, the organizing committee, together with the patriarchal commission, will approve a plan for festive events in July-August of this year in the city of Sarov and the village of Diveevo (where the monastery with the relics of Seraphim of Sarov is located), as well as Kursk and Nizhny Novgorod and will consider what has already been accomplished and how much money remains need to. In addition, the main provisions for the organizing committee and the executive committee for preparing the celebration will be approved. According to Igor Meshchan, a member of the executive committee, the organizing committee is designed to attract “administrative resources and help in those matters in which government agencies are competent (ensuring the safety of guests, their accommodation, meals, holding conferences),” and the executive committee was created to attract sponsorship funds and manage restoration work on facilities in Sarov and Diveevo. For example, only the restoration of the Church of Seraphim of Sarov, which until recently housed a drama theater, will require 43.8 million rubles. And according to the program of investment projects, the implementation of which is related to the celebration, which was approved by Governor Gennady Khodyrev, almost 660 million rubles will be required.
According to the cost estimate for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov, only about 3% of the invested funds are provided for the celebration of canonization and the arrangement of churches. The main part will be used to improve the infrastructure of the city of Sarov and its environs (Diveevo) - construction of roads, commissioning of a drama theater, construction of wastewater treatment plants and sewerage, construction of houses for the resettlement of families living on the territory of the monastery, withdrawal of police services from there.
As Bishop Georgy of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas told Kommersant, “as far as financing is concerned, the federal budget is actually not involved in this. Mostly sponsorship funds are used, which, however, are not yet enough.” According to the Bishop, to date, assistance has been received from the Ministry of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation, the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics, Ergobank, OJSC Defensive System, Sarovbusinessbank, Promsvyazbank, and the Wimm-Bill-Dann company.
As for the plan for the celebrations, according to Bishop George, it is assumed that on July 29 the relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov will be transferred from Diveyevo to Sarov. On July 30, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II will have to consecrate the Church of Seraphim of Sarov and the saint’s cell. And on July 31, a prayer service will be held, at which President Putin is expected to be present. After which there will be a religious procession from Sarov to Diveevo. An evening service is to take place that evening. The celebrations will end on August 1 with a divine liturgy and procession of the cross.
PAVEL KOROBOV

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 56 dated 04/02/2003, p. 7

Authors:

Pavel Korobov

Arzamas-16 will be repaired at the expense of Seraphim of Sarov