On April 21, as always on the Friday of the Bright Week, the memory of the icon of the Mother of God “The Life-Giving Spring” is celebrated. The Divine Liturgy was head by the senior priest of the cathedral Valery Voloshchuk, in the concelebration of the dean of the Western District of Rostov-on-Don, Priest Alexander Litvinenko, senior priest of the St. Nicholas Church of Aksai Vladimir Chechanovsky, clerics of the cathedral John Tsupko and Sergius Kropivnitsky. At the end of the liturgy, a water-blessing prayer service was performed in front of the ancient image of the Mother of God “Life-Giving Spring” and a new icon was consecrated.

In Starocherkassk Army Cathedral of Christ’s Resurrection the icon of the Mother of God “The Life-Giving Spring”, written specifically for the cathedral, is stored, dating from the XVIII century, about which there is an inscription on the icon itself. Over the last century, this cathedral icon had to travel through the temples of our diocese, after the closure of the church and the sacristy, and many shrines were lost and looted. But the especially revered image was preserved by pious Cossacks. At first it was moved to the Novocherkassk Cathedral, where it was deeply revered, and in the recent period it was transferred to the newly opened church of the same name in Petrovka, which now has the status of a monastery courtyard. Then the icon returned to the Novocherkassk Cathedral, which had become Patriarchal Cathedral by that time. A few years ago, with the blessing of Metropolitan Mercury of Rostov and Novocherkassk, the head of the Don Metropolia, it was transferred to the native place — the oldest church in the south of Russia — Starocherkassk Army Cathedral of Christ’s Resurrection.