20 February 2026 – Akmola Region, Tselinograd District. Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan visited the village of Akmol and its surroundings – the place of the spiritual struggles and martyric death of the twelve New Martyrs of the Church of Christ and the site of the mass burial of prisoners of the Akmolinsk Camp for Wives of Traitors to the Motherland – “ALZHIR.”
The Head of the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan was accompanied by Archimandrite Sergius (Karamyshev), Dean of the parishes of Astana, Archpriest Sergius Kaliyev, sacristan of the Cathedral of Sts. Constantine and Helen in Astana, and I.E. Yatsenko, assistant to the metropolitan.
In the church dedicated to the New Martyrs and Confessors of Akmolinsk, located near the place where from 1937 to 1953 the 17th corrective labor camp R-17 – “ALZHIR” – had been situated, the Head of the Metropolitan District served a moleben to the saints of Kazakhstan. The metropolitan prayed for the episcopate, pastors, monastics, and laity of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District, for peace and prosperity upon the land of Kazakhstan, for President K.-J.K. Tokayev, the authorities, the armed forces, and the people of the Republic.
Thereafter, at the memorial cross erected near the church, the hierarch served a funeral litia and prayerfully commemorated “archpastors, pastors, monastics, and laity who in the land of Kazakhstan, in the years of fierce persecutions for the truth of God and the Church of Christ, suffered and in this place were unjustly tortured and slain.” Eternal memory was proclaimed to all “who were tortured and slain by the godless, who died of hunger, cold, wounds, illnesses, and exhausting labor.”
The rector of the Church of the New Martyrs of Akmolinsk, Priest Sergius Lubnevsky, acquainted the hierarch with parish life and informed him of the completion of repairs to the parish Sunday school premises. After reviewing the results of the work carried out, Metropolitan Alexander held a meeting at which prospects for the development of educational and social ministry in the Tselinograd District and for pilgrimage to the places of the sufferings of the martyrs for the faith of Christ were discussed.
The Head of the Metropolitan District thanked the rector and the parish activists for their labors and imparted his archpastoral blessing for Great Lent.
The metropolitan also visited the cemetery located near the village of Akmol – the site of the mass burial of prisoners of the Akmolinsk Camp for Wives of Traitors to the Motherland. At the place of rest of the innocently slain, a memorial cross with an icon of the Resurrection of Christ has been erected. The monument bears the inscription: “This Orthodox memorial cross was erected with the blessing of Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan in 2020 in memory of the innocent women prisoners of the ‘ALZHIR’ camp who suffered from the repressions of the 1930s–1950s.”
The initiator of the creation of the memorial crosses at ALZHIR was the well-known public figure and philanthropist, president of a charitable foundation, G.M. Pogosyan.
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