On May 17-18, 2023, the National Guard aviation and the Synodal Department on cooperation with the armed forces and law enforcement arranged flights carrying the wonderworking icon of Venerable Seraphim of Sarov over the areas of the Russian Federation deemed vulnerable to potential threat from the enemy’s UAVs.

The flights were made with the blessing of Metropolitan Kirill of Stavropol and Nevinnomyssk, the chairman of the synodal department on cooperation with the armed forces and law enforcement agencies.

Ilyushin Il-76 and Mi-8 military transport aircraft were used to perform these flights. Rev.Fr. Roman Bogdasarov, head of Rosgvardiya segment, were reading the prayers about holy Russia, to Venerable Seraphim of Sarov and Tsar Nicholas, the Royal Passions Bearer.

The icon of the Venerable Seraphim of Sarov included in the flights was painted immediately upon the canonization of Seraphim of Sarov in 1903. A year later, Emperor Nicholas II blessed the soldiers of the Zakatala regiment departing for the Russian-Japanese war with this icon.

This icon has already visited the units of the Rosgvardiya for several times at the front lines of the special military operation, at the home front, and the military hospitals. The holy icon was on loan from the Museum of the Last Russian Emperor Nicholas II founded from the private collections of the art historian and restorer A. V. Renzhin.