Tuesday 12th October marked the 40-Day anniversary of the tragedy that took place in the North-Ossetian town of Beslan, Russia. Services were held all throughout the country by Russian Orthodox churches to commemorate the disaster.

Throughout the whole of this week, events and gatherings will be held in Russia in memory of the tragedy. The 40 days after a person’s death is set aside for strict mourning, according to the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Relatives and friends will remember the lost ones as “the most recently departed.”

A majority of the population of Beslan and the region are of the Russian Orthodox Church. Therefore, over the past 40 days the friends and families have entered a strict period of mourning; remembering those lost in the tragedy which shook the world after 330 children, school teachers and adults were killed.

Patriarch of Moscow came out on Tuesday with expressions of sympathy to support the people who lost their families in the heartbreak.

“Forty days have passed since the death of innocent people at the hands of the terrorists, who seized the general school in Beslan,” Alexy II says in a special address to the nation.

Itar-Tass News reported that, “This has been a period of bitter grief and trial for the families of the departed ones, and only other people’s sympathy, compassion, and prayers have made it possible for them to get over the grief and gave strength to them to continue living.”

As Alexy II tried to give courage to relatives and friends of the dead, he continued saying, “The cruelty of the thugs overfilled with hatred and malice shocked the world community and left a deep imprint in the heart of every Russian.”

In addition, a special liturgy to remember the victims was recited at Moscow Cathedral of the Saviour. The Archbishop Arsenius of Istra said, “Tradition requires that on the 40th day after someone’s death a particular remembrance service must be chanted, and that’s why we’ve gathered here in the Cathedral of the Saviour to pray for those who were slain or died of wounds.”

He continued, “Malicious people tried to sew discord in our society, but their schemes flopped, because our people always stands up united to face the times of trial – and we definitely saw how our compatriots sympathised with the victims of the tragedy,”

Tributes are also being made for ten servicemen of the Russian army who died whilst freeing the hostages in the incident. On October 15th a charity concert will take place in the Cathedral of the Saviour to raise money and to finance the construction of a memorial church in Beslan.