"Address by Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan at the opening of the exhibition dedicated to the Holy Martyr Pimen, Bishop of Verny, and the presentation of Olga Khodakovskaya's book 'Where the Mountain Peaks Shine'

Your Eminences, venerable fathers, dear brothers and sisters!

On the day of remembrance of Saint Tikhon, the Confessor and Patriarch of All Russia – a saint who leads the Assembly of Martyrs for Christ in our Church – we are opening an exhibition in the spiritual-cultural center of the Metropolitan District of Kazakhstan. This exhibition is dedicated to the first martyr of the Semirechye region – Bishop Pimen of Verny (Belolikov). This year is special for the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan as it marks the 20th anniversary since the establishment of the Metropolitan District on the ancient land of Kazakhstan, and today's event is timed to coincide with this historical date.

Alongside documentary materials that tell the story of Holy Martyr Pimen, we are presented with the book: 'Where the Mountain Peaks Shine.' The author of this significant scholarly work is Olga Ivanovna Khodakovskaya, a candidate of philosophical sciences and head of the archives of the Saint Petersburg Metropolis. Her book provides the most complete and reliable biography of Bishop Pimen. Based on archival documents, publications, and contemporaries' memoirs, the author intricately describes the life path, salvific works, and the martyr's ordeal of the Kazakhstan's first martyr, revealing the image of a good shepherd who lays down his life for his flock (John 10:11).

Bishop Pimen of Verny and Semirechye was born in a region known as the Northern Thebaid, an area where many disciples of St. Sergius of Radonezh had once shone forth. He hailed from the ancient and devout clerical Belolikov family. Among his relatives were notable church figures like the righteous pastor St. John of Kronstadt, church historian Archbishop Ambrosius (Ornatsky), the martyr priest Philosoph Ornatsky, and the spiritual writer, confessor of the faith, priest John Ornatsky. Many of his kin, mentors, and close friends suffered for the truth of God.

Bishop Pimen spent his early years in spiritual schools at the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, the Antony of Novgorod Hermitage, and the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, preparing for a life of service to God and people. Ordained for every good deed (2 Timothy 3:17), he was called by Divine Providence to challenging obediences. He spent seven years of his life with the Urmia spiritual mission in Northwestern Persia, where he laboriously enlightened the Orthodox Assyrians.
His good deeds are remembered in the Caucasus, where he led the Ardonskaya spiritual seminary, and he was loved by the faithful in the Perm region, where Archimandrite Pimen (Belolikov) was a faithful assistant to Bishop Andronik (Nikolsky) – an ascetic who suffered martyrdom in 1918.

He arrived in Verny, the center of the Semirechye Vicariate of the Turkestan diocese, in October 1917, as a historical and spiritual catastrophe – the October Revolutionary upheaval – loomed over the country. According to the Apostle Paul, he showed himself as a minister of God in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses (2 Corinthians 6:4).
As a valiant defender of gospel truth, Bishop Pimen boldly condemned the bloody Bolshevik coup, opposed decrees aimed at destroying piety, and fought to prevent civil war and establish peace and brotherly love. Amid the sea of suffering brought by the godless power in Semirechye, the bishop devoted all his strength to helping the people in their misfortunes— warned those who are unruly, comforted the fainthearted, upholded the weak, was patient with all. (1 Thessalonians 5:14).

According to the Lord: " For everyone practicing evil hates the light" (John 3:20). Consumed with hatred for Bishop Pimen, the spiritual and moral corrupters of the Church, without trial, executed him under the cover of night in Baum grove, located eight versts from the city of Verny.

We discover significant salvific lessons for ourselves, delving into the life of the martyr Bishop Pimen. The great legacy left to us by this active hierarch and courageous sufferer is his fervent love for Christ and his neighbors, for whom he laid down his life (John 15:13). His compelling calls to renew faith in God in our hearts, to steadfastly keep our native Orthodoxy, we hear in the sermons of Bishop Pimen, and we see in this fearless hierarch a vivid example of firm trust in Christ and fervent love for the Church. The archbishop of Verny testified that it is senseless and impossible to build a normal, full life for a person, family, society, and country without God. He inspires us to keep in our hearts a living and sincere faith that works through love (Galatians 5:6).

Bishop Pimen became the first martyr of the land of Kazakhstan and one of the first martyrs for Christ in the 20th century, by whose prayers the Orthodox Church lives today. May God grant that the grateful memory of his labors and feats never fade among our people.