A higher calling: Flickr photo of the day

Michael Clemmer

We’ve all been there. First there’s the idiotic ringtone, which wasn’t silenced before the service started. We glance at our phone, knowing the caller must have an emergency, in light of where we are. Embarrassment commingles with anxiety and we hurriedly excuse ourselves from the solemn ceremony.

For one Russian Orthodox Bishop, blue kamilavka in hand, it must have been a very important call. His phone rang during the Day of Remembrance and Grief ceremony, a very solemn event. Celebrated each June 22 by placing wreaths of flowers at the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier, it commemorates June 22, 1941, when Russia was first bombed by Nazi Germany. Before the war’s end, the lives of 26.6 million Russians would be lost.

Mariano Mantel photographed the service in Red Square, Moscow, Russia.

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