On September 25 we celebrated with joy and piety the Day of one of the most revered Saints of the Urals, the Righteous Simeon of Verkhoturye. On the eve a sacred procession was solemnly greeted in Merkushino, the first sacred procession since 1917 to follow the path of St. Simeon.
Centuries ago there was an old village in the Verkhoturye province - Tagilskaya Sloboda. It was founded in 1612 on the Tagil River, near the monastery of the Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Not far away from this settlement, which was destroyed in 1930s, the village Makhnyovo was located. According to legend St. Simeon often visited this particular village to pray during the divine service, the village Tagilskaya Sloboda, dozens of kilometers away from Merkushino. When the Righteous Simeon lived in Merkushino, the village had no church. It was a long way to Tagilskaya Sloboda: about 46 kilometers through taiga forest and swamps, one of the swamps being the big, notorious Shaitan Swamp. However, St. Simeon walked this dangerous path so often in order to pray during the divine service, that peasants called the track between Merkushino and Tagilskaya Sloboda the path of Simeon. And one more legend refers to this path: once St. Simeon, who is known to have been a tailor, worked in the house of a peasant in Tagilskaya Sloboda. When he returned to Merkushino, he found out that by accident he took a needle from the house where he worked. And then the righteous man, who strived for spotless conscience, immediately set off to return the needle to the peasant.
In the 19th century many pilgrims took the path of Simeon to worship the relics of the righteous man: through Alapaevsk, Nizhnyaya Sinyachikha, Makhnyovo, Merkushino and other villages, to Verkhoturye. In the early 20th century a wider passage was made along the track between Makhnyovo and Merkushino. In 1914 thousands of pilgrims joined in the sacred procession from Yekaterinburg to Verkhoturye. However, after the Revolution the passage was left untended and in few decades became absolutely impassable.
Recently the ancient pilgrim track along the path of Simeon has been gradually restored. It took much effort to find and clear the path, to board the track in swampy areas. And this year the sacred procession followed the path of St. Simeon, the first sacred procession since 1917. About a hundred pilgrims from Yekaterinburg and some other towns of the Ural Region, as well as pilgrims from Rostov-on-Don and St. Petersburg, left Makhnyovo early in the morning, September 23. The sacred procession walked along the path the whole day and in the evening a second sacred procession started from Merkushino to greet the pilgrims. Archbishop Vikenty led clergy, sisters of the convent and numerous pilgrims in the second procession.
Vladika Vikenty passed his hearty congratulations and thanks to all those who took part in the sacred procession along the path of Simeon, which certainly may be deemed a genuine spiritual feat. This event became a kind of sermon about love to the Righteous Simeon, and we believe that this will serve to multiply the glory of the righteous man in the Urals.