HOLIDAY
FOR THE SAKE OF PEACE AND KINDNESS The Orthodox world celebrated one of the main Christian holidays - the Nativity of Christ. All roads on this bright day lead to churches. There is an immutable tradition in Belarus: no matter what, the head of state attends the Christmas service.
Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Minsk
That Thursday he was awaited in the new Minsk Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The President brought an icon as a gift, lit a candle, and addressed the parishioners. Alexander Lukashenko spoke about the past 2020 year and the coming 2021 year, called for unity, asked to take care of each other, own family and friends. He began by saying about his personal attitude to this day: — This is a bright, kind holiday. We all expect from it not only good, but also miracles. Probably, this makes us very similar to our children. The peculiarity of such, my beloved, holidays — as Christmas, Easter — is that each of us, each person goes his/her own way to own church. This is the greatest treasure that you and I have.
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БЕЛАРУСЬ. BELARUS 2021
On that Christmas morning, many more people came to the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Minsk, which was built for the simultaneous acceptance of up to 300 people. The President, addressing the parishioners, asked a seemingly rhetorical question: why are we going? And answered himself: — I am absolutely convinced that all those who go to the church go for peace. They go for forgiveness. They follow the Christian values that live in us. More than 2 thousand years ago, Christmas became a kind of starting point for a new civilization, a new world order, where love, justice, kindness and mercy reign. These character traits are absolutely inherent in the Belarusian people. Some people have more of them, some less. But in general, the pursuit of honesty, decency and justice is in our blood. And therefore, Alexander Lukashenko is sure, God protects us. He spoke taking into account the lessons of recent times. He recalled the coronavirus pandemic, its terrible consequences, and likened them to other countries. And then he said: — We should understand that only together can we save this plot of land, and our children will be able to live after us with their own minds on their land. In the New Year message, I already said, that we can lose what we have. And the worst thing is that we can lose it irrevocably. In the church, sounded the following message from the head of state: to think about the future. Not only about our own, but also about our children’s future:
— It is on this holy day that He warns us from there... This is very relevant and very important. When else to think about the near future and make plans, if not at Christmas? After all, the President stressed, this is exactly the holiday that defines a new life for at least a year ahead. Hence I wish: — I really want us not to repeat the previous year, although I did not stigmatize it. We needed this year to get our heads right and to think about the future. So that we could realize who is next to us, so that we could clearly define who is who. We needed this year, but we needed it in the past. I do not want it to be repeated in this and next year. I want next year to be better — and it will be better! If we do not just want, but do everything necessary, depending on each of us. But we also shouldn’t forget about the past. The Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, built in 2020, borders on the memorial complex “Masyukovschina death camp” - a remembrance place for the burial of more than 80 thousand prisoners of war and civilian Soviet citizens who were tortured in a Nazi concentration camp during the Great Patriotic War. The Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the President said, is, first of all, a monument to all those who died: — These are the people who haven’t betrayed, who haven’t given up. These are the people who fought and died during the Great Patriotic War. This is very important to us now. Our entire Belarus, as I often say, is a monument to that war. We, Belarusians, shouldn’t heroize Na-
