Russian Church to enter 11 mln names of WW II victims in remembrance

St PETERSBURG, May 8 (Itar-Tass) - Names of 11 million Russians and
people from other former Soviet republics will be entered in a digital
remembrance book of the St Vladimir's Cathedral here Sunday.
The names are recorded on a special disk for the church book of
martyrs and have been provided by the Russian Defense Ministry's
department for commemorating the soldiers killed while defending homeland.
The disk will be handed to the Church officials by Andrei Taranov, the
chief of the aforesaid department. Also timed for the event is a meeting
of war veterans and survivors of the Siege of Leningrad.
The disk contains the soldiers' first and second names and
patronymics, the year and place of birth, as well as the information on
where they were drafted into the Armed Forces and what military units they
were assigned to.
If the appropriate information is available, the digital remembrance
book will also provide the information on where a soldier died and where
he or she was buried.
An all-Russia remembrance book with the names of people who died in
military conflicts, accidents and disasters of the 20th century was
created at the St Vladimir's Cathedral in 2009. The data for it is
supplied by state agencies, archives and public associations.
The collection of information for the remembrance book continues and
the cathedral's clerics invite everyone willing to keep up memories about
family members and friends to take part in this activity.
"We're doing this to maintain the historical memory about the
compatriots who contributed to the multiplication of Russia's glory, to
remember them in prayers and to make the information on them more
accessible to the public," archpriest Vladimir Sorokin told Itar-Tass.
Church has the biggest responsibility in society for keeping alive the
memories of past generations of people, he said.
"The people who live today have an immediate duty of praying for the
departed ones," the Reverend Sorokin said. "It's only the Eastern Orthodox
Christian canon that includes the naming of the killed and otherwise
departed people, or in other words the historical memory into everyday
liturgical services."