Artist/iconographer Mikhail Osipenko (the painter of the icon) with his son Mikhail from the town of Pokrov and Fr. Andrei of Optina Pustynt arrived by bus with the icon in Harbin on the evening of August 14. On Sunday, the pilgrims visited the temple of the Protecting Veil, where they presented an icon of the Chinese Martyrs to the church elder, Liubov Shitova, and sang the Akathist to the Port Arthur icon of the Mother of God.
On Monday afternoon, we (without the icon) visited the former Holy Iveron temple, the place of burial from 1920 to 2006 of Lieutenant General V.O. Kappel. All participants were pleasantly surprised by changes to the former church: an asphalted entrance to the temple, red paving stones on the whole area around the church, made three huge garden beds planted with ornamental shrubs, flowers and grass. A new roof covers the church.
On Monday, before its departure for Shenyang, the icon's cover was removed in the waiting room and Harbin's Russian Orthodox residents, who were seeing off the icon, crossed themselves and venerated the image and prayed for the procession's successful conclusion in the city of Lushun (Port Arthur).
On the morning of August 17 the Port Arthur icon arrived in Shenyang (Mukden). The visit of Port Arthur itself is scheduled for August 18.
Let us pray for the successful conclusion of the procession -- with God's help!
Sergei Gribin. Harbin.