Thought it has nothing to do with politics, petitions or ethnic pride, it's worth mentioning that today is Meatfare Saturday, one of the memorial "Saturday of Souls" of the church year, during which Orthodox Christians especially pray for the dead.
Two Sundays before Great Lent begins (Meatfare Sunday), the Church pauses to remind us of our ultimate destination: the judgment of the living and the dead, the righteous and the sinful, at the awesome second coming of Christ. And so on the Saturday before it, the Church calls on us to pray for the peaceful rest, forgiveness of sins and eternal memory of "the dead in Christ" (1 Thessalonians 4:16), our Orthodox Christian brothers and sisters who lie in the sleep of death awaiting their awakening at the resurrection of all for the Last Judgment -- particularly those who died unknown and alone, or in extenuating circumstances that deprived them of a church funeral.
Indeed, on the Orthodox Christian calendar, every Saturday is a
weekly commemoration of all the dead in Christ, both those who
have been revealed to be sainted and those whose fate remains
undisclosed to us.
Why?
Because Saturday is the Sabbath, the seventh day, the holy day of rest ("Sabbath" comes from the Hebrew word for "rest"). "On the seventh day," at the creation of the heavens and the earth, "God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done." (Genesis 2:2-3)
In addition, Saturday is also the day on which the God-Man Jesus Christ rested from His work of redemption, lying in the tomb between His death on the Cross and His resurrection, while His soul descended into the underworld of death, whose power imploded in on itself because of His presence, for death could not hold the One who is "the resurrection and the life" (John 11:25).
And so on this holy day of rest we remember with prayers and alms our fellow members of the Church who are now resting in death until His return and the resurrection and judgment of all, for "whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord" (Romans 14:8) and "neither death nor life... will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39). "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living -- for all are alive to Him." (Luke 20:38)
So today, amid all the tumults of the world, let us lovingly pause to pray for the dead in Christ and do a good deed for the poor and needy in their memory, asking God to show them favor at the Last Judgment. And while remembering them, let us ponder and pray about our own ultimate fate as well: "For a Christian ending to our lives, painless, blameless and peaceful, with a good defense before the awesome judgment seat of Christ, let us ask of the Lord."