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June 1, 2011
Jackson, NJ: Remembrance of Lienz Tragedy

On June 1, 1945, at the conclusion of the most terrible war in the history of mankind, in the mountain town of Lienz, over 20,000 Cossacks were rounded up and handed over to death in the Soviet Union. By tradition, the Kuban Cossack Voisko Abroad commemorates the victims of this tragedy every year on the nearest Sunday to June 1.

On Sunday, May 29, on the Sunday of the Blind Man, worshippers gathered at St. Vladimir’s Cemetery in Jackson, NJ for a panihida at St. John’s Chapel. Eastern American Diocesan secretary Archpriest Serge Lukianov, rector of the chapel, served the panihida, co-served by Priest Alexey Bocharnikov, rector of St. Nicholas Church in Chester and spiritual father of the Cossack Congress in America. Commemorated at the service were "every Cossack, all those who without fault were murdered at the hands of the lawless in the city of Lienz, all those given over unto death at the hands of the cruel godless ones, and all those who laid down their lives, who in prisons and in camps suffered and were killed."

At the end of the panihida, all those in attendance returned to the Cossack hall for a commemorative luncheon. The ataman of the Kuban Cossack Voisko Abroad, Alexander M. Pewnew, delivered a speech outlining the importance of this day, and shared his firsthand accounts of the massacre. Memory eternal and eternal rest to all of the fallen at Lienz!

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Media Office of the Eastern American Diocese