Metropolitan Jonah calls for prayers in wake of Moscow airport suicide bombing
On Monday, January 24, 2011—less than 48 hours after His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah and His Grace, Bishop Melchisedek of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania returned from a one-week unofficial visit to Russia—Moscow’s Domodedovo International Airport was rocked by one or several suspected suicide bombers.
The blasts, centered in the airport’s highly trafficked arrivals waiting area, left at least 35 confirmed dead and nearly 150 hurt. The exact extent of the damage, both human and material, has yet to be fully assessed. At the time of this writing, it is uncertain as to who was responsible for the attack.
“News of the attack was truly frightening,” said Metropolitan Jonah, who was informed of the attack during Monday’s March for Life in the US capital. “We had just passed through Domodedovo, which makes this tragic news all the more incomprehensible. Our prayers are with the victims and their families, as well as the entire Russian nation, as yet again we are reminded of the fallen nature of this world and the consequences that befall us when that ‘peace which passes all understanding’ is absent in the hearts and minds of so many. I wish to assure His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, of our prayers and deep concern.
“I call upon the hierarchs, clergy, monastics, and faithful of the Orthodox Church in America to pray for the victims of this tragedy, and to pray that ‘the peace of the whole world’ for which we continually pray can—and will—prevail,” Metropolitan Jonah added. “May our risen Lord give rest to those who lost their lives in the attack, and may His gracious healing be given to the injured.”
An investigation on the bombing has been launched, while Russian President Dimitri Medvedev postponed a trip to Switzerland and ordered stepped up security at all Russian airports.