Commemoration Saturday of Great Lent: Metropolitan Alexander Celebrates the Liturgy at the Representation of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District in Moscow

March 15, 2025 – Saturday of the Second Week of Great Lent, Commemoration of the Departed; Feast in Honor of the “Theotokos Derzhavnaya” Icon.

Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Holy Martyrs Faith, Hope, Love, and Their Mother Sophia at the Patriarchal Representation of the Metropolitan District of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Republic of Kazakhstan in Moscow.

His Eminence was joined in concelebration by: Acting Rector of the Almaty Orthodox Theological Seminary, Head of the Information Department of the Metropolitan District, Archpriest Evgeniy Ivanov; Vice-Rector of the Almaty Theological Seminary, Candidate of Theology, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Hegumen Agafangel (Gagua); Sacristan of the Church of the Holy Martyrs Faith, Hope, Love, and Their Mother Sophia, Hieromonk Antony (Drobyazko); clergy of the Representation.

The church choir, conducted by Anna Rozhnova, sang during the service.

The Liturgy was attended by staff members of the Representation, benefactors of the Patriarchal Podvorye, and parishioners of the church.

During the Liturgy, special memorial prayers were offered for the ever-memorable Archpriest Boris Prisyazhnyuk, through whose labors the parish was revived, for the departed builders and benefactors of the church, and for those buried at the Miusskoye Cemetery in Moscow.

At the conclusion of the Divine Service, Metropolitan Alexander addressed the faithful with a sermon on the importance of commemorating the departed, after which a panikhida was served for all “Orthodox Christians who have passed away from the beginning of time to this day.”

“The Church has been granted great power, an extraordinary authority given by God to change the fate of its departed children. We bring to the church commemoration slips with the names of those dear to our hearts, fervently praying for the forgiveness of the voluntary and involuntary sins of ‘our predecessors, relatives, and loved ones.’ We offer prosphora, from which particles are taken at the very beginning of the Liturgy, during the Proskomedia, on the holy altar. Then, at a deeply significant moment of the Divine Service, all these particles are immersed in the chalice containing the Most Pure and Life-Giving Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, while the priest prays: ‘Wash away, O Lord, the sins of all those commemorated here by Your Precious Blood, through the prayers of Your saints.’ Our departed relatives, friends, and acquaintances, whose names are written in the commemoration slips, receive grace, sanctification, and remission of sins through the Bloodless Sacrifice offered on the Holy Altar. Those righteous ones to whom, by special Divine providence, the mysteries of the afterlife have been revealed, testify that the souls of the departed experience the greatest consolation and ineffable joy when the Church prays for them and the Holy Eucharist is offered on their behalf.” From sermon of Metropolitan Alexander.