Metropolitan Alexander served a memorial litia at the burial place of Bishop Timon (Rusanov) – the first hierarch of the Kostanay land

11 January 2026. Kostanay. Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan, who is on an archpastoral visit to the Kostanay Diocese, served a litia for the repose of Bishop Timon (Rusanov) – the first hierarch of the Kostanay land.

Together with the Head of the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan prayed: the Secretary of the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, choirmaster of the choir of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District, member of the Patriarchal Council for the Development of Russian Church Singing O.N. Ovchinnikov; the Secretary of the Kostanay Diocese Hieromonk Gennady (Burdyuzha), the head of the metropolitan’s personal secretariat Hieromonk Prokhor (Yendovitsky), the head of the metropolitan protocol service Protodeacon Roman Golovin, Protodeacon Vladimir Syrovatsky, Protodeacon Alexander Mokiy, Deacon Georgy Tkachenko, and clerics of the Kostanay Diocese.

At the conclusion of the service, eternal memory was proclaimed to the servant of God, after which His Eminence delivered a sermon on the importance of preserving historical memory of the sufferers for Christ and the ascetics of piety who shone forth in the region in the twentieth century.

«The passage of time distances us from those terrible years when the God-fighting authorities carried out throughout the country a policy of total destruction of the Orthodox Church. The present young generation of clergy and laity, fortunately, no longer has the sorrowful experience of enduring the hardships that inevitably confronted those who dared openly to confess the faith of Christ in the atheistic era. But, thanks be to God, the memory of the sufferers for the evangelical truth lives on, and their veneration among the Orthodox people grows from year to year. Who could have imagined that precisely the twentieth century would become for the Church and the Fatherland a time of grievous trials and bloody repressions, with which the horrors of pagan times cannot be compared. All the malice of the enemy of the human race was unleashed upon those who strove to live according to God’s commandments, who did not renounce Christ. It was then that the land of Kazakhstan became a new Golgotha for countless Orthodox Christians – hierarchs, pastors, monastics, and laity. So abundantly was the blood of the new martyrs and confessors shed here that these regions, in the words of the ever-memorable His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, truly became an «Antimension spread out under the open sky». Therefore Kazakhstan is dear to the heart of every person who honors the подвиг of the sufferers for the faith, loves Orthodoxy, and cherishes the historical heritage of the Church.

Bishop of Kostanay Timon (Rusanov), having taken upon himself in that difficult era the cross of archpastoral service, became one of the pillars of faith and piety, a fighter against godlessness and schism, a fearless preacher of God’s truth and an accuser of unbelief. Gazing upon the image of the ever-memorable hierarch, studying the details of his life, analyzing his deeds and traits of character, we are inspired by the incorruptible beauty of the heavenly world that is revealed to us in his person, and we strive to draw nearer to the spiritual joy of communion with God which the hierarch acquired. «The love of God, illuminating the righteous man, radiating already from him, can be contemplated also by others who have not attained spirituality», says the priest-philosopher Father Pavel Florensky.

Now, in an era of escalating conflicts and contradictions, of the multiplication of hatred and malice, it is especially important for all of us, inspired by the examples of our pious and courageous predecessors, not to forget our calling to be peacemakers, to manifest kindness and love, responsiveness and mercy, to bear witness to Christ, Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6)». From the address of Metropolitan Alexander in memory of Bishop Timon (Rusanov).