Exhibition "Overcoming: Russian Church and Soviet authorities" opens in Yaroslavl

The exhibition of exclusive historical materials, "Overcoming: the Russian Church and the Soviet authorities" began its work on October 8 in the gallery of the Dormition Cathedral.

The exhibition with this name twice amazed the visitors both in Moscow and Italy and now it has come to Yaroslavl. From October 8 to 22, residents of Yaroslavl will be able to familiarize themselves with the exploits of Orthodoxy during the difficult Soviet period.

Unique archival documents, displayed on the exhibition stands, are supplemented with local materials as well—extant items and documents of clergymen and their family members. The exhibition displays the objects that tell exclusively about the earthly life of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Yaroslavl land.

The materials that underlie the exhibition were prepared by St. Tikhon's Orthodox University and the Museum of modern history of Russia.

“Fortunately, the time of persecution of the Church in our country is now in the past. But that difficult time is still remembered by those few people who survived beyond repressions, after exiles in labor camps and prisons, together with their descendants. Our duty is to tell the story it in its true colors," noted Archbishop Veniamin of Rybinsk and Uglich at the press-conference the day before opening of the conference in the Dormition Cathedral.

“This exhibition enjoyed great success last autumn in Moscow: it was visited by more than 7,000 people, and it even had to be prolonged three times,” said a co-author of the "Overcoming" exhibition, senior researcher of the Modern Church History department of St. Tikhon's University Lidia Golovkova. “In August of this year, in Rimini, the Italian version of this exhibition was presented and it broke all attendance records. And this is symbolic: "a time to gather stones" has come, and it means that interest in culture and history is growing in our society.

Against the background of huge banners on which the whole epoch of the Russian Orthodox Church from the beginning of the 20th century till its restoration at the present time is represented, the Yaroslavl themes are much smaller in and number of exhibits than those of the Moscow exhibition. However, these materials reflect the atmosphere of those years as brightly and vividly as the Moscow materials. These are photographs, archival documents, letters, and personal belongings of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Yaroslavl.

Many names: St. Agafangel, Hieromartyrs Seraphim and Veniamin, Bishop-Confessor Athanasy (Sakharov), St. Seraphim of Vyritsa —all of them will appear before the Yaroslavl visitors of the exhibition in an absolutely different look. Information on these and many other historic personalities was collected little by little by the researchers of the Yaroslavl Metropolia.

Also the Icon "Synaxis of Holy New Martyrs of the Yaroslavl land", given to the Diocese of Yaroslavl by the exhibition's co-organizers, is displayed at the exhibition. On October 8, the icon will be brought to the "Stary gorod" (Old city) concert-exhibition complex for all to see as the main relic of the eleventh Orthodox inter-regional exhibition, "The world and the Clergy". After the exhibition, which will last till October 13, the icon is to be moved to the Kazan Convent of Yaroslavl.

Source: Pravoslavie. ru