This is a complete misunderstanding of:
- Cultural differences;
- Life in small villages in Eastern Europe.
Everybody in the village turns out to mourn when a fellow villager dies. People don’t carry photos of deceased family members. Somebody else in the community carries the photo to show that the entire village perceives the loss as theirs. This is Western Ukraine, and it has its own set of funeral rites hallowed by centuries of tradition. That one boy has the community-approved role of being responsible for carrying the portrait when somebody dies is normal. He’s probably one of the altar boys in the local church. If the deceased soldier had a son, the son’s role is to be next to the mother and take care of younger siblings, if any. Nobody would ask him to leave the mother’s side. It’s just not done.
The reason why family members aren’t asked to carry the portrait is because you don’t give tasks to bereaved relatives. It’s considered extremely rude. The community congeals around the bereaved, and everything you need to get done during the first nine days is done for you. You don’t need to ask. Everybody has their role and fulfills it.
What is even the suggestion here? That there’s no war? That these soldiers didn’t die? It’s been four years. Are we still at the stage of proving to morons of Glen Greenwald’s caliber that the war is real?
Clarissa's Blog 
Ha! Before I even looked at the text, I wondered if the kid was an altar boy. That’s a procession, he’s in it…
I’ve finally been Orthodox long enough to notice! Give it another twenty years and I might even have acquired an Orthodox phronema… π
-ethyl
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Let’s see what happens when this moron notices the bearded men in robes in the background. He’ll probably suspect something occult is going on.
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π
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