Russian Orthodox Christians marking feast of Intercession.

MOSCOW, October 14 (Itar-Tass) - Festive liturgies are held Wednesday
in all the churches of the Russian Orthodox Church, as the Orthodox
community is marking the feast of Intercession of Our Lady, also known as
the Day of the Virgin Mary's Most Holy Protective Shroud.

The feast is unique for the fact that it is not observed practically
anywhere in the world of Eastern Orthodoxy except Russia, although it has
a strictly Byzantine origin and commemorates an event when an elderly man
from the congregation suddenly envisioned the Virgin Mary who stood above
the praying people in the air and spread her shroud over them in
protection against a Slavic army besieging Constantinople.
The feast was brought to Russia by Prince Andrei the God-Loving in the
12th century. To foster its veneration among the people, Andrei who made
his seat in the northwest Russian city of Vladimir, built the world-famous
Church of Intercession on the Nerl River near it.
St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow's Red Square, the calling card of the
Russian capital, also has the official name of the Church of Intercession
of Our Lady that Is on the Moat.
The holiday of the Virgin Mary's Protective Shroud has traditionally
been associated with mercy for people in restrictive situations or social
positions.
This has prompted the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill to
declare October 14 the Day of Mercy for All Those Kept in Shackles.
At the Patriarch's blessing, Orthodox priests will visit prisons and
pre-trial detention centers in Moscow and will hold special services at
prison churches.
This humanitarian action pursues the goal of "drawing the public's
attention to the problems of convicts, to the needs of those who're kept
in penitentiaries or pre-trial detention centers," Moscow Patriarchate's
press service said.
His Holiness Kirill himself is expected to spend the whole day
Wednesday in the city of Novocherkassk in southern Russia, which is viewed
on the historical plane as the capital of the Russian Cossacks of the Don
River.
In the morning, he will lead a liturgy in the Ascension Cathedral in
Novocherkassk. After that, His Holiness Kirill will attend a parade of
Cossack pre-cadet schools, the number of which stands at 25 at the moment.
The Patriarch is expected to take part in a visiting session of the
Presidential Council for the Policy towards the Cossacks in the afternoon.
In the meantime, regional authorities in some parts of the Russian
Federation have declared the feast of Intercession a day off work.

.Armenian President to make symbolic visit to Turkey.

ANKARA, October 14 (Itar-Tass) - Armenia's President Serzh Sargsyan is
expected to arrive in Turkey on a visit, which the Turkish Foreign
Ministry has described as 'symbolic'.
As the official reason for his trip here, officials on both sides name
the presence at a 'revenge game' between the Armenian and Turkish national
football teams that will play in the town of Bursa as part of the
qualifying round for World Cup 2010.
The Foreign Ministry said in a communique Sargsyan will visit this
country at the invitation by President Abdullah Gul in the follow-up to
the October 10 signing of the Armenian-Turkish protocols on the
establishment of diplomatic relations and development of bilateral
relations.
"Along with an opportunity to ensure top-level contacts between the
two countries, this visit also has a symbolic meaning as it marks the
first-ever trip by an Armenian President to Turkey," the ministry said.
Reports indicate this visit will furnish Sargsyan and Gul with an
opportunity to discuss some problems in bilateral relations.
They will do this at dinner, after which they will go together to the
Attaturk stadium to watch the game.
The owner of he hotel that Sargsyan chose as the place of
accommodation told the semi-official Anatolian news agency that the visit
has been organized at the highest possible level. Also, the local
authorities have tightened security measures.
Hundreds of policemen will be watching law and order in the city
itself and in its environs.
Most observers stress the significance of Sargsyan's visit as an
important step towards normalizing relations between the Armenian and
Turkish peoples that have been strained since the years of World War I.
Ice in relations between the countries having a common border but no
diplomatic, trade, cultural or whatever ties so far was melted down
September 6, 2008, when Abdullah Gul came to Yerevan at Armenia's
invitation, as the two countries football teams played against each other,
for the first time in history.
The rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey is impeded by a number of
really hard problems, and given the stated willingness to build
good-neighborly relations the two Presidents will have tap approaches to
clearing the backlog of obstructions.
The Turkish-Armenian state border remains closed since 1993 when
Ankara decided to sever diplomatic contacts with Armenia in the wake of
the conflict in Azerbaijan's enclave region of Nagorny Karabakh. The
Turskish government sided with the ethnically closely related Azerbaijan
in that conflict.
Armenian government and ethnic communities worldwide also believe that
Turkey must recognize the ethnic genocide of Armenian population in the
Ottoman Empires in 1915. However, the Turks have been vehemently rejecting
all such accusations.
-0-kle