Private Investigators Day in Russia

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Krioni A.E.

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Private Investigators Day in Russia

08 April 2020 | 1267 views

The date chosen by detectives to mark Private Investigators Day is no coincidence: it derives from the foundational texts of Christianity, which offer a detailed account of the birth and evolution of private investigation among the first Christians. 

Mk.1:17	Mk.14:13-16	Lk.22:36-38	Mk.14:47

All twelve Gospels, as well as the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians and the Synoptic Gospels, give a thorough and more or less unanimous account of how, on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (i.e. the second day of the Jewish festival of Passover), Jesus instructed two of his best disciples, the apostles Peter and John, to arm themselves, go into Jerusalem, and find and follow a man with a jug of water who would secretly lead them to the place where Passover was to be celebrated. 

At this Last Supper, Jesus exchanged further words with Peter. During this conversation, Jesus told the apostle not to let Roman soldiers break his shins during his execution.

Mk.14:51, 52	Mk.14:54	Mk.15:20-21	Acts 5:1-10

After nightfall, following the end of the feast, Jesus Christ and his disciples proceeded to the Garden of Gethsemane, where a cohort of soldiers and servants of the high priests and Pharisees soon arrived to take him into custody. According to Matthew and Mark, with the exception of Peter, all of Jesus’ disciples fled in fear.

Only Peter, and later John and Mark, who rejoined him, were not afraid of being seized. Just like spies, these three secretly followed their teacher to find out where Jesus would spend the night under arrest. Only Peter gained access to the guarded courtyard of the high priest Annas, however. Here, seated in the firelight surrounded by enemies, the apostle is the only witness to Jesus Christ’s brutal trial at the hands of the high priests and scribes, who force him to incriminate himself under charges of incitement to sedition.

As the dawn is breaking, the apostle, covering his face with his hands, leaves the hostile courtyard undetected. He runs as fast as he can out of the courtyard of the high priest and across a field to reach the threshold of the Judgement Gate. Here, catching sight of some soldiers and identifying himself to them as Simon of Cyrene, he persuades a guard to lay the cross upon him so that he can carry it for Jesus.

Private detectives place great importance on maintaining the professional traditions conceived and founded by the ancestor of all detectives, the supreme Apostle of Jesus Christ, Simon Bar-Jonah (the Apostle Peter). Now, just as was the case 2,000 years ago, the detective’s honesty, courage, and consistency alone determine the readiness of law-abiding people to trust once again that they will be protected from darkness and injustice.

Fig. 1. Icon of the Apostle Peter, heavenly protector of private security guards and detectives. Painted by master icon painters from the Palekhsky Iconostasis icon workshop. Solemnly consecrated by the Dean of the Church of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God in the town of Yuzha, Priest Aleksey Likhachev, on 25 December 2011.

Fig. 2. Sacred image of Simon Bar-Jonah, the first private detective. This icon was consecrated on the morning of 9 February 2020 by Archpriest Lev Smirnov at the Church of the Holy Sign in the village of Krasnoye, Palekhsky District, Ivanovo Region of the Diocese of Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Kineshemsk of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). Painted by master icon painters from the Palekhsky Iconostasis icon workshop.

Private Investigators Day is a ‘moveable’ feast – it is celebrated from Thursday to Friday on the second day of the Jewish festival of Passover.

In 2020, detectives will be beginning their celebrations early on the morning of Thursday 9 April, and continuing them until Friday 10 April.