February 23, 2025 – Meatfare Sunday, the Sunday of the Last Judgment. On this preparatory Sunday before Great Lent, the Church remembers the universal Last and Dread Judgment of God over humanity.
Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Church of the Holy Martyrs Faith, Hope, Love, and their Mother Sophia at the Patriarchal Metochion in Moscow, which serves as the Representation of the Kazakhstani Metropolitan District.
Concelebrating with the Head of the Metropolitan District were Archimandrite Georgy (Yevdachev), Abbot of St. George’s Meshchovsk Monastery (Kaluga Metropolis); Protopriest Andrey Pavlenko; Igumen Agafangel (Gagua), Vice-Rector of Almaty Theological Seminary, Candidate of Theology, Doctor of Medical Sciences, and Professor; Hieromonk Antony (Drobiazko), Sacristan of the church; as well as the clergy of the Representation Church.
The staff of the Representation and parishioners prayed at the service.
The church choir, under the direction of Anna Rozhnova, sang the hymns of the Liturgy.
At the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy, Metropolitan Alexander congratulated the clergy and faithful on the Sunday of the Last Judgment, delivered a homily, and then blessed the faithful with holy water.
“Today, on this Sunday—the ‘Little Pascha’—the Lord has granted us the opportunity to gather together for the Divine Liturgy in this holy church and to offer up our prayers with one voice and one heart. We have now entered a special time—the period of preparation for the Holy Forty Days, the great and salvific labor of Great Lent. There is an ancient commandment to offer to God a tenth of all that one acquires. The tenth part of the year is the 40 days of Great Lent. We dedicate this time in a special way to our Creator and prepare ourselves for the feast of Holy Pascha—the Feast of Feasts, the Triumph of Triumphs. The Christian passes the period of the Forty Days in strict abstinence, fervent prayers, acts of charity, and the reading of the Holy Scriptures, so that, in sacred joy, he may meet the day of Christ’s Radiant Resurrection and receive the blessing of the Lord for all the endeavors of the year.
Today, as at every Divine Liturgy, we have heard the Holy Gospel—the words of eternal life. The Gospel passage read today revealed to us a great and fearful event that awaits all mankind at the end of time: the Last Judgment of the Creator of this world. On that Day, God will evaluate our deeds and actions. We will be judged for how we used the precious gift of life, whether we showed mercy to our neighbor, how we responded to the sufferings, illnesses, and tribulations of those around us. The Judge of all the world will ask whether we visited those in prison, comforted the sick, and fed the hungry, or if we lived only for ourselves, in pride, forgetting about our neighbors, about the truth of God, about mercy, and about goodness. Today, we heard what a dreadful sentence will be pronounced upon those who rejected acts of love, and what joyful words full of divine mercy will be addressed to those who lived according to the Gospel and the holy commandments. Here on earth, we still have a choice. We can choose the good and reject evil. Let us use the time granted to us by the Lord for the salvation of our souls, so that we may be faithful children of God and of His Holy Orthodox Church. Faith should not be limited to words but should be proven by our deeds. This Gospel reading today renews in us the remembrance of the most important choice we all must make—where we will be in eternal life: with God or without Him, with the Lord or without His mercy. Those who fail to show mercy in this world will be left without mercy in eternity. Let us strive with our minds and souls to hear these words of eternal life, so that they may touch our believing hearts and make us faithful disciples of Christ.” — From the homily of Metropolitan Alexander.
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