TUROV, 2 May (BelTA) – Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko is visiting the Cathedral of Sts. Cyril and Lavrentiy of Turov in the town of Turov in Zhitkovichi District, BelTA has learned.
The head of state is set to light an Easter candle in the church. Aleksandr Lukashenko will donate the Cathedral a recreated Turov Cross, which was lost after the earthquake that destroyed the cathedral in the 13th century.
As BelTA reported earlier, over the past few years, Belarus has been working to recreate the altar cross of the diocese of Turov of the 12th-13th centuries. It belongs to the erecting (altar) crosses of the Byzantine and Old Russian temples. A famous Belarusian relic - the cross of Venerable Euphrosyne of Polotsk – can be named among them.
Back in 1962, during the excavations of the Turov settlement, four lead icons - of the Blessed Virgin Mary and three saints - were discovered on the layer of the 12th-13th centuries. According to scientists, they were located on the altar cross. The cross itself was the main sanctuary of the diocese of Turov and was kept on the altar of the cathedral of the city. It is known that the temple was destroyed by an earthquake in the first half of the 13th century.
The decision has been recently taken to recreate the Turov cross. The corresponding order was given by Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko on 16 June 2017 during his visit to the Polesie State Radiation and Ecological Reserve. In August 2019, the concept of the Turov cross was approved by the then Metropolitan Pavel of Minsk and Zaslavl. The work began in the autumn. Two identical crosses were made according to medieval technologies – the one for the diocese of Turov and the other for the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.
