Firebird Videos, Audios & Books
St. Innocent Monastic Community
Redford, Michigan

 

I. VIDEOS IN ENGLISH

 VE-4.  KURSK-KORENNAYA ICON

     FEAST-DAY CELEBRATION
Kursk, Russia  *  June 18, 1993
DVD  ♦  60 mins.  ♦  1994  ♦  ISBN 1881211-20-7
PRICE: $24.95

 

DESCRIPTION:

Experience highlights of a breath-taking, day-long feast-day pilgrimage (krestnii khod) in the Russian countryside, and witness the amazing intensity of the Orthodox Faith among the people in Russia today.  

The Kursk-Korennaya Icon (shown on the video cover) is one of the major types of icons of the Mother of God, whose feast day is celebrated in Kursk annually.  This fascinating video shows highlights of the 1993 celebration, starting in the provincial city of Kursk, and ending at the monastery built at the site of the original appearance of the icon.  An English narration explains all that is being seen, making the video a fine educational tool. 

The day starts at 6:00 a.m. with a Hierarchal Divine Liturgy, (served by two bishops and numerous priests, deacons, sub-deacons and other servers, and sung by students of the Kursk diocesan seminary and choir directors school), in an early 19th century cathedral that had just been given back to the Church.  The icon is then carried in procession through the streets of Kursk to the magnificent diocesan cathedral, with its awesome, ornate, gilded iconostasis.  From there the icon is taken to two village churches (you won't believe that they are village churches, they are so grand!), and then on to the newly-rebuilt, large, rural Monastery of the Kursk-Korennaya Icon — built on the very site of the original appearance of the icon.  At each place the crowds of pilgrims, frequently singing, wait hours for the procession's arrival. 

This video allows the viewer to witness the vitality of the Orthodox Church in Russia today; to experience the depth of devotion of the people; to see the interiors and exteriors of the monastery and a number of gorgeous, newly reconstructed churches; and to be in the birthplace of St. Seraphim of Sarov.  This video is especially effective as an introduction to the Orthodox Church in Russia, and as a general educational tool about many different aspects of the Orthodox Church.