Feast of the Cross closes the pilgrimage season

15 September 2026

On Monday 14 September, Salyba Künü, the Church kept the Feast of the Cross and the anniversaries of the union with Rome in 1931 and of the reconsecration of the cathedral in 1992.

Mar Ephrem celebrated the Solemn Holy Qurbana and blessed the families of the summer pastures before their journey down to the winter quarters. “After the Cross, no yurt on the zhayloo,” as the saying goes, and the last pilgrim camps below the hill were taken down that afternoon.

At the end of the liturgy the Archbishop led prayers for Mar Timotheos Alimbekov, the first Archbishop of Iyık Janyl, who negotiated the union of 1931 and died in custody in 1938. His burial place is still unknown. The Archbishop thanked the families who hid the books, vestments and icons of the cathedral in the mountains during the years when it was closed.