On the Day of the Holy Spirit, the Head of the Metropolitan District Celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Kazan Cathedral of the Southern Capital

June 9, 2025 – Day of the Holy Spirit. On the Monday following Pentecost, the Church celebrates the feast in honor of the Holy Spirit, instituted “for the glorification of the Most Holy and Life-Giving Spirit, Who is One of the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity,” in opposition to the teachings of heretics who denied the Divinity of the Holy Spirit and His consubstantiality with God the Father and the Son of God.

Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the oldest church of the city of Alma‑Ata – the Cathedral in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.

Concelebrating with His Eminence were: Protopriest Valeriy Zakharov, Dean of the churches of Alma‑Ata and Rector of the Nikolsky Cathedral; Protopriest Evgeny Vorobyov, Rector of the Alma‑Ata church in honor of the Icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow”; Protopriest Alexander Zyryanov, Dean of the Ili church district; Protopriest Kirill Shklyar, sacristan of the Petropavlovsk church; Hieromonk Prokhor (Endovitsky), representing the Metropolitan; Protopriest Georgy Rublinsky, sacristan of the Kazan Cathedral; Hieromonk Cherubim (Levin); Protodeacon Nikolay Grinkevich; Protodeacon Roman Golovin, head of the Metropolitan’s protocol service; Deacon Konstantin Volnyagin; Deacon Georgy Tkachenko.

For the spiritual veneration and strengthening of the faithful, a reliquary with a fragment of the Mamre Oak was brought to the service.

The mixed choir of the Kazan and Ascension cathedrals of the Southern Capital sang under the direction of M.S. Chistyakova.

The sermon after the Communion verse was delivered by Hieromonk Cherubim (Levin).

At the conclusion of the service, glorification was sung before the icon of the Most Holy Trinity – the clergy, choir, and faithful performed the troparion, kontakion, and magnification of the feast.

His Eminence gave a pastoral address to those present.

The Head of the Metropolitan District congratulated the sacristan of the Kazan Cathedral, Priest Georgy Rublinsky, on his birthday and presented him with holy prosphora, wishing him God’s mercy, spiritual and bodily health, and diligent service to the Church of Christ.

“Today is the Day of the Holy Spirit – a feast dedicated to the Third Hypostasis of the Life-Giving Trinity. ‘By the Holy Spirit every soul is quickened and by cleansing exalted,’ as it is said in a well-known hymn of the All-Night Vigil. We heard in the Holy Scriptures the account of how on the fiftieth day after the Resurrection of Christ the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles, and they received the power to go forth and preach the teaching of the Lord and Savior to the ends of the earth. For this preaching they gave the most precious thing a person can have – their lives. By their labors and martyrdom, the apostles testified to the truth of Christ’s teaching, the One Who came into this world to seek and save the lost, Who desires for every person to know the truth of God. The feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles is the birthday of the Church, to which we have the privilege to belong; the Church in which we are sanctified and enlightened by participating in the saving Mysteries; the Church founded not by men but by the Son of God Himself, and which by His truthful promise, ‘the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,’ endures forever. In the Orthodox Church we received Baptism, being born for eternal life; here we are anointed with chrism to be strengthened by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which bring forth their blessed fruits – peace, joy, faith, long-suffering, goodness, mercy. We, the children of the Church, should with all our hearts love the Mother Church and reverently go to God’s temples, so that we – mortals – may touch the incorruptible, we – temporary – may partake in the eternal. Here, in holy temples, we comprehend the depths of spiritual truths and learn the moral beauty of the Gospel teaching. Here, in the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, we walk the path of salvation – from earth to Heaven.” From the sermon of Metropolitan Alexander.