25.05.2023.
SAF members at Ascension Day Procession
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Miloš Vučević participated in the Ascension Day (Spasovdan) procession, which was held tonight to mark the feast day of the city of Belgrade, the Ascension of the Lord, led by His Holiness Porfirije, Serbian Patriarch.
By tradition, members of the Serbian Armed Forces Guard and cadets of the Military Academy participate in the Ascension Day procession, and this year, members of advisory boards of the Minister of Defence and the Chief of the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff also walked in the procession.At the forefront of the procession was the reliquary containing the relics of Saint Bishop Nikolaj of Žiča and Ohrid, which had been brought for this occasion from the Lelić Monastery near Valjevo to Belgrade’s Church of the Ascension.
Members of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces walked the streets of Belgrade alongside the most sacred objects – the Icon of the Mother of God of Three Hands, the Icon of Saint Bishop Nikolaj and the Holy Gospel.
The Ascension Day procession started in Kralja Milana Street, made its way across the Slavija Square and down Liberation Boulevard, all the way to the Church of Saint Sava in Vračar, where Patriarch Porfirije officiated a prayer service and delivered a sermon to the gathered people, praying for peace among people. During the procession, a mass was served on the corner of Kralja Milana and Kralja Milutina streets for the students killed in Vladislav Ribnikar Elementary School shooting and the people killed in the mass shooting in the villages near Mladenovac, and all the victims of domestic abuse and other forms of violence.
Yesterday, members of the Serbian Armed Forces, alongside the priests and monks of the Diocese of Valjevo, participated in the transfer of the reliquary containing the relics of Saint Bishop Nikolaj of Žiča and Ohrid from the Lelić Monastery, all the way to the Church of the Ascension in Belgrade.The Ascension Day (Spasovdan) was established as the capital’s feast day in 1403, when the Serbian ruler Despot Stefan Lazarević declared Belgrade the capital of Serbia and chose the Ascension Day as the capital’s feast day.
