MOSCOW, July 19 (RIA Novosti) – Thousands of pilgrims have come to Moscow's largest cathedral to touch and kiss the Cross of St. Andrew the Apostle, with psychologists recruited to mind the crowd and help keep conflicts to a minimum.
A relic of one of the patron saints of Russia, the cross was brought from Patras, Greece, to mark the 1025th anniversary of Russia’s baptism.
The relic, which drew hundreds of thousands of pilgrims while on display in St. Petersburg last week, will be showcased in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral from Friday to July 25, after which it will go to Ukraine and Belarus.
Sergei Tiunov, head of the group of psychologists to tend to the line in Moscow, said his team had been dispatched to provide help for people who might be in an overexcited emotional state.
“Our task is to prevent all force majeure situations in the crowd, to prevent all misunderstandings and conflicts,” Tiunov said, adding that his team would be helping all those lost in the crowd or in a need of a headache pill.
This is not the first time that the Moscow’s biggest cathedral is seeing large flocks of pilgrims.
Almost a million believers from all over Russia, as well as other former Soviet states, flocked to the Russian capital amid freezing temperatures in November 2011 to see the Virgin Mary's Cincture, a belt that Christians believe was worn by Jesus' mother.
