Icons by Svetlana Rjanitcyna
Svetlana is a Russian Iconographer living in Moscow
for our salvation
Rose
from the
Dead
The bodies of the Men and Women of the camps are tossed, with little concern, into unmarked mass graves. An icy tomb in the permafrost their only place to rest. Will they be forgotten still? Will their sorrowful work be wasted?
Jesus, after only 3 days You Rise again!
Death is conquered! Victory is yours!
The Men and Women of the Camps having walked The Way with Christ, will rise with Christ, this we know.
And from this spark of sorrow a new flame of hope has been kindled, that, with God's help, Russia will rise to faith again, and be made whole.Jesus, Resurrected Lord,
Come and heal this country.
Bring a resurrection and rebirth.
Amen.Each step of the journey is difficult for the Men and Women of the camps. ‘Across the wild steppes of Trans-Baikal’ packed into the cattle cars of the prison train 30 even 40 days, with little food or water, they are exiled far from home and family. Oh how will they survive? How can they endure? Yet they struggle on ... somehow.
...Though many do not survive.They die on the trains.
The Men and Women of the camps also have mothers who care for them, who worry about them, who suffer with them. But who must now, to avoid suspicion, denounce their own children as traitors to the state - never to hear from them again. Silently their hearts too are pierced through with pain.
And the Men and Women of the camps find no comfort.
The Men and Women of the camps have no one to help them,no one to lift this weight from them. It is they who must bear the weight of a nation and the sins of men and of a system gone awry.
Oh Men and Women of the camps have you no oneto help you, to care for you?Yes, your family and friends back homelove you and worry about you.They try to send packages,but they seldom arrive.Some even try to move nearby,but they are seldom allowed.There is nothing they can dono way to reach out to you.They too suffer with youbut you have no way to reward their love.
Each step of the journey is difficult for the Men and Women of the camps. Now packed into freighters, 5000 at a time, overcrowded, abused and tortured, by guard and fellow prisoner alike. Across the Sea of Okhotsk they struggle on to Magadan ... somehow.
...Though many do not survive.They die on the ships.
Oh Magadan, Oh Magadan, you were built to receive the Men and Women of the camps...and send them on again to their deaths. Now the Lord longs to gather your children under His wings, as a mother hen gathers her chicks, and to comfort them. That they might stand proud once again.Jesus we want to weep for the laborers -for the Men and Women of the camps - over their sufferings -over their pains. Are we to shed our tears for them? No! Shed tears for Russia and for her Children.
Oh Russia, Oh Russia
Dear to Our Lady, The Mother of God, though you for so long wandered so far from her ways, She now calls you back: repent and be healed. Come, walk in Her ways once again!Each step of the journey is difficult for the Men and Women of the camps, and still there is no end. Now up 'the highway of blood and bones' they must go. North to the camps, and to the mines they struggle on ... somehow.
... Though so many do not
survive.
They die on the highway.
Oh Men and Women of the camps you have only the clothes on your back -that is until the thieves steal even those. But even that is not enough, for then they take your dignity, your self- respect, and your humanity; all gone, stripped away - left naked in the cold to die
Oh, Men and Women of the camps, what tortures, what deliberate actions you must endure from your fellow man. Oh what work your frost-bitten hands must do. What steps your rag-wrapped feet must trod, as they beat, and whip and push you to work still harder - that a little gold or lead might be mined before you take your very last breath, and die.
The many thousands, maybe millions -who knows how many Men and Women of the camps -cannot endure any more. And at last they cry, “My country, Why have you abandoned us?" "Oh, world, Why have you forgotten us?" And there in the mines, and in the labor camps they die. For what?
Jesus, a heavy cross is laid on your shoulders and you must set out on your Way to Calvary Oh how will you bear it - you are so weak. Yet you know it is your Father's will to redeem the world through love, and so in love you choose to go for us.
All the condemned men and women have no choice, they have to take up this journey and set out on their Way to the Camps -to the gold mines and labor camps of Kolyma."Will this be my end" they wonder? "Will I ever return?"Jesus you knelt in the garden full of fear and agony, yet, entrusting all into your Father's hands.Thus you were prepared when, suddenly they were there- the soldiers and the temple guards, who take you to an earthly judge, who finds no fault with you, yet all the same, condemns you to death - to death on the cross.
So many innocent men and women, throughout the USSR, sat in their homes, unprepared, when suddenly, they were there -the soldiers and the secret police, who haul them away and torture them till they confess to some false charge, and then condemn them to hard labor in the mines of Siberia.
There was no one to mourn for the Men and Women of the camps when at last they died. No one to prepare their bodies for burial. No one to pray for them.