В Екатеринбурге верующие вышли на крестный ход вопреки запрету властей

In Yekaterinburg, believers took to the unsanctioned Royal Procession, broadcast by the E1 portal.

Since the authorities did not allow the procession, the police did not block the roads.

People went to the procession after the service at the Church-on-the-Blood, which was conducted by Metropolitan of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturye Eugene (Kulberg). He recalled that due to the worsening situation with COVID-19, the authorities banned the religious procession this year and there would be no organized procession.

“And when the service is over, each of us will go where his heart leads him - someone will go home, someone will go to relatives. Someone will go to a prayer service in the monastery on Ganina Yama - it will be unorganized, ”said the metropolitan. He urged believers to be attentive to themselves and the people who are nearby, and conveyed to the believers the request of Patriarch Kirill to “put on a mask.”

Up to 3,000 people participate in the procession, according to the Telegram channel “Main Channel of Yekaterinburg”. Ura.ru sources in law enforcement reported about 2,000 believers.

In the Yekaterinburg diocese, they refused to call such a procession a "traditional religious procession." “Some of the people who participated in the liturgy went to Ganina Yama on foot, in small groups, along the sidewalk. It cannot be called a traditional procession of the cross,” the diocese told RIA Novosti.

The authorities of the Sverdlovsk region did not agree on holding a religious procession this year. They explained their decision by the deterioration of the situation with the spread of coronavirus. In particular, Governor Yevgeny Kuyvashev posted on Instagram a photo from last year's religious procession, noting that the participants were not wearing masks and social distance was not observed. According to him, after that procession, cases of infection were recorded when people suffered COVID-19 "quite hard."

This year, a more contagious Indian strain has begun to spread across the country and "many more people are being put on oxygen," the governor explained the cancellation of the march. At the same time, he added that “going to the procession on your own is dangerous.”

In turn, Metropolitan Eugene, after the ban by the authorities, said that “in the current epidemic situation, there can be no ideal solutions” and everyone “finds a balance between courage and fear, responsibility and courage, caution and boldness.” He said that he would go to an uncoordinated procession, and asked everyone to take maximum measures to save their lives and the health of those around them. However, later the authorities of the Sverlovsk region reported that they had agreed with the metropolitan not to hold a religious procession.

The religious procession takes place annually in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, on the anniversary of the execution of the family of Nicholas II. The route stretches from the Temple on the Blood, which was erected on the site of the house of engineer Ipatiev, in which the Bolsheviks shot the royal family, to the Ganina Yama monastery, where they tried to destroy the remains of the dead.