His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ bestows the Order of Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga upon the eldest nun of the Iveron-St. Seraphim Convent of Almaty, Schema-nun Irina (Lyubitskaya), on the occasion of her 100th birthday

On April 18, 2025, the eldest nun of the Iveron-St. Seraphim Convent in Almaty, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, Schema-nun Irina (Lyubitskaya), turns 100 years old.

In recognition of her merits and labors for the benefit of the Orthodox Church, on the occasion of her centenary and the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ has bestowed upon Mother Irina the highest women’s award of the Russian Orthodox Church — the Order of Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga, First Class.

Schema-nun Irina was born on April 18, 1925, in the village of Besedeno, Orenburg Region.

From the first days of the Great Patriotic War, she labored for the coming Victory on the home front. From 1942 to 1945, she worked in evacuation hospitals opened in Tajikistan for wounded soldiers and, in the evenings, studied in a medical college in the feldsher department. For her selfless work for the good of the Fatherland during the wartime hardship, she was awarded the title “Home Front Worker.” From 1947 to 1981, she worked as a feldsher in the emergency medical service in the city of Alma-Ata.

In 1948, shortly after the confessor of the faith, Bishop Nikolai (Mogilevsky), was appointed to the episcopal see in Alma-Ata, she began serving as a choir singer on the left kliros of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Alma-Ata. On August 23, 1952, with the blessing of Metropolitan Nikolai, Archimandrite Isaakiy (Vinogradov), an outstanding church figure of the mid-20th century, tonsured her into monasticism. Until 1981, Nun Irina carried out various obediences at the Almaty Diocesan Administration, while continuing to work in the hospital; for more than 60 years, she labored as a kliros singer.

With the revival of the Iveron-St. Seraphim Monastery in Kazakhstan’s southern capital, she became a member of the monastic community in 2009. On April 12, 2011, she received the great schema.