Russians want to carry out white general Denikin's will

On August 7th, 2002 it will be 55 years since General Anton Denikin, one of the leaders of the Russian White-Guard movement (it opposed the Bolshevik Red Movement) died. In commemoration of that date, a requiem service will be held in Moscow today according to the Russian Orthodox rite near the All Saints Church in Sokol, reports the POBC-inform agency.

Near the church stands Russia's only monument to the General of the Russian Imperial Army and the White-Guard Movement. It was built in 1994 with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia on money donated by Orthodox veterans of the Second World War and parishioners of the church. The monument itself is an element of the memorial "Reconciliation of the Peoples who Fought in the First and Second Wars, and the Civil War." Denikin was the son of a serf farmer, who served in the army and reached the rank of major. Perhaps that is the reason why he was a very humble man, who did not like festivities, ceremonies and parades. Today's ceremony will be very simple, too.

A group of veterans of the Great Patriotic War has requested the Russian mass media to support the initiative of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Great Patriotic War veterans to have Denikin's remains brought to Russia and re-buried here.

General Denikin died in 1947 in the USA. He left a will requesting to be buried in his homeland, but he is buried in the Russian cemetery in the town of Jackson, New Jersey. At present, a number of public organizations of Russia are raising the question of the re-burial of his remains in Russia, as bequeathed by him.