An ancient venerated icon of the Holy Great Martyr and Healer Panteleimon was returned to the Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles in Ulyanovsk after restoration on August 24.
Lidiya Merlyushkina, a parishioner of the Cathedral of the Nativity, told about the history of the temple.
In the 1980s, my friends and I attended divine services in the church in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Burning Bush". We talked and were friends with many parishioners. One day we heard that in one of the villages of the Nizhny Novgorod region there is a priest, Father Nikolai Grigoriev, who preaches in the Chuvash language. We began to visit him periodically for services and talks. One of the parishioners found out about this and asked to give the priest the image of the Great Martyr Panteleimon, which she kept. She lived in a dilapidated house next to the temple on Kulikovka. She came to services every morning and evening. Her house was covered in icons, many of them very large, probably from closed or destroyed churches in Simbirsk. We complied with her request. When the Church of the Nativity was opened in Ulyanovsk, Father Nicholas' son, Father Ilya, was appointed rector of this parish. Then Father Nicholas gave his blessing to place the icon presented to him in the Chuvash temple.
In 2023, the icon was handed over to specialists of the Moscow Danilov Monastery for restoration work. Now parishioners can again pray in front of the venerated icon and turn to Saint Panteleimon with the hope of his prayerful intercession before the Lord," said Priest Vladimir Manyakov, rector of the Church of the Nativity.