MOSCOW, September 3 (RIA Novosti, Olga Lipich) - Orthodox and Catholic churches, mosques, synagogues, and pagodas across Russia will hold services today to commemorate the victims to the September 2004 Beslan hostage siege.
"The Russian Orthodox Church is expressing deep condolences and support to those who lost their near and dear, to all people of Beslan and North Ossetia," the Russian church leader, Patriarch Alexy II, said in his address to believers on Saturday.
Talgat Tadzhuddin, Russia's chief mufti, has suggested conducting prayers and sermons in mosques throughout the country on Saturday to denounce terrorism.
The Russian Muslim leader said terrorists were trying to sow distrust and hostility among countries and people of different religious beliefs.
"Let those who sent murderers to the long-suffering Russian and North Ossetian lands be cursed," said Mufti Mukhammedgali Khuzin, the head of the executive committee of the Central Religious Department of Muslims.
Russia's chief rubbi, Berl Lazar, has called on Jews to go to synagogues on Saturday to demonstrate "solidarity, help, and humanness" in response to aggressiveness.
Russia's Traditional Buddhist Sangha, community, will also hold commemorative services in all its pagodas on Saturday.
Moscow's Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady will conduct a mass for the victims to the Beslan tragedy today.
Three hundred and thirty-one people, including 186 children, were killed when terrorists seized a school in the Russian town of Beslan in North Ossetia in the North Caucasus on September 1-3 and when troops stormed the building later, 918 people were rescued.
