No. 3, 2009

Resounding success for the 4th “Orthodox Russia” interregional exhibition, held in Perm at the end of August 2009

The "Orthodox Russia" Interregional Exhibition, held in Perm for the fourth time on August 21-26, 2009, is part of the "Orthodox Russia" National Forum for clergy and the public, the task of which is to unite the efforts of the Russian Orthodox Church, the secular authorities, and the people at large to preserve and nurture the traditional spiritual values of Russia's culture, arts, and morality.

Going to church

In the years that the "Orthodox Russia" exhibition has been held in Perm, its importance has grown many times over. The churches and monasteries there receive aid and charity, business executives find new partners, and secular and ecclesiastical organizations get more and more people involved in social, educational, and charitable programs.

An integral part of the exhibition is its varied business program, which includes presentations by different firms, round table debates and other talks, meetings with representatives from the city administration and public and charitable organizations, plus encounters with publishers, film directors, educators, and psychologists.

Clergy from the Perm and Solikamsk bishopric take direct part in the exhibition's special events, which are devoted to various aspects of serving the Church, and to humanitarian problems. Such events are of great educational, pastoral, and missionary importance.

The exposition is dedicated to a wide variety of themes. These include service to the Russian Orthodox Church, its missionary and cultural activities, icon painting, social and charitable projects of secular organizations, spiritual education, Orthodox literature and teachings, the Orthodox mass media, the rebuilding and restoration of Orthodox churches and monasteries, pilgrimage, Orthodox traditions in the visual arts and jewelry making, decorative and applied art and folk crafts, gifts for Orthodox holidays, and much, much more. There is growing interest among the laity over the opportunity to speak directly with spiritual leaders at the "Ask the Priest a Question" booth.

The exhibition's cultural program, which features professional, amateur, and children's groups, is laden with emotional content. Residents of the city and the outlying the Perm Territory, along with guests from other cities across Russia, have taken an enormous interest in this extraordinary event in the life of the nation. This part of the exhibition includes presentations of new works in spiritual literature and works of visual art, screenings of Orthodox films, concerts of Church choral music, debates and sermons on topics relevant to today, and meetings with spiritual leaders.

For the good of the faith

Joint projects between the Russian Orthodox Church and public, governmental, and commercial organizations in the areas of preserving the nations' historical and cultural treasures, social work, and charity, are featured in a special section of the exhibition, "Social Partnership and Charitable Activities".

The exposition from LUKOIL-Perm holds an important place here. The company's imaginative booth recalls a cathedral in miniature. The exposition, put together by oilmen, was examined with great interest by visitors from Moscow, representatives from the Moscow Patriarchy. They learned in detail about the company's charity projects and came away greatly satisfied with what they had seen.

LUKOIL oilmen, as part of the company's social investment in conducting events, competitions, and social and cultural projects, make major contributions in support of the Perm Territory's traditional religions and spiritual life. Support for Orthodox churches is of a targeted nature, since most of the old buildings are in a state of great disrepair. With financial assistance from the oilmen, the construction of new churches has begun in the villages of Kuyeda and Uinskoye, and in the town of Chernushka. With support from oilmen, restoration is now under way at such historic local holy sites as the Belogorsk St. Nicholas Monastery for Missionaries, dubbed the Athos of the Urals for its beauty more than 100 years ago, even before construction was completed. With LUKOIL's help, the derelict Stefanov Monastery of the Holy Trinity, located in Perm, has been restored, and a new five-domed church of extraordinary beauty, the Cathedral of the Epiphany, has been built at the monastery of the same name, on the very bank of the Kama.

At the Stroganov ancestral estates in the Usolye district, oilmen are helping to restore the cathedral built centuries ago by Count Stroganov and destroyed in Soviet times. This assistance from the Perm oilmen is, so to speak, plainly visible to all, but there are other kinds of help that are, if not as noticeable, certainly no less valuable. Oilmen have helped to restore an iconostasis in the tiny village of Ashap, and the village of Yelovo's Peter and Paul Church once again has a bell thanks to their efforts. Workers from LUKOIL-Permnefteorgsintez have restored the Church of the Annunciation in the old village of Nizhniye Mully, which had stood for half a century with no windows, no doors, and burned-out cupolas. One very important line of LUKOIL-Perm's work in bringing new life to Orthodoxy is its organizing of annual pilgrimages to holy sites around Russia, to which it invites local government officials from oil-producing territories. The officials, elected to their posts by their fellow landsmen, take their new mission very seriously. Once they have visited Kulikovo Field, the St. Seraphim of Diveyevo Convent of the Holy Trinity, the stauropegion Svyato-Vvedensky Monastery in Optina Pustyn, Valaam Island, Tikhvin, and St. Petersburg, and knelt at the holy places and Orthodox shrines of their native Russia, they become conduits for the rebirth of Orthodoxy in their own lands. In the Osa district, the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, which had been deserted for half a century, has been restored.

LUKOIL Group's Perm divisions offer assistance to the Russian Orthodox Church's Orthodox Gymnasium, an educational institution with more than a hundred students ranging from first to tenth grade. Such concern over centuries-old traditions will undoubtedly be met with good, since they are another way of shaping history, and one that shall be perpetuated in the future.

With the blessing of Kirill, the Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, this year's grand "Orthodox Russia Forum" for clergy and the public has already been held in St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Rostov-on-Don, Perm, and Veliky Novgorod. The forum's main event, the 8th "Orthodox Russia Exhibition" for clergy and the public, will be held in Moscow, and will coincide with two holidays observed in Russia on November 4: the government's Day of National Unity and the Church's Day of the Kazan Mother of God Icon.