Metropolitan Alexander celebrated the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts at St Seraphim Church in Astana

6 March 2026 – Friday of the 2nd week of Great Lent; the celebration in honor of the Kozelshchanskaya Icon of the Mother of God.

Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan celebrated the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts at the Church of Venerable Seraphim of Sarov in the city of Astana.

Concelebrating with the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan were: Dean of the parishes of the capital of Kazakhstan Archimandrite Sergy (Karamyshev); key-keeper of St Seraphim Church Archpriest Evgeny Korolkov; clerics of St Seraphim Church Archimandrite Joasaph (Serkez) and Hieromonk Siluan (Sinegubov); key-keeper of the St Constantine and Helen Cathedral Archpriest Sergy Kaliev; head of the Orthodox youth movement of the Astana Deanery Priest Grigory Kulikov; head of the Metropolitan’s Personal Secretariat Hieromonk Prokhor (Yendovitsky); head of the Metropolitan Protocol Service Protodeacon Roman Golovin; Protodeacon Vladimir Syrovatsky; Deacon John Artemyev; Deacon Andrei Shidlovsky.

Reliquaries containing the relics of St Luke of Crimea and Blessed Matrona of Moscow were brought to the church for the service.

The choir of the Dormition Cathedral sang under the direction of O. Varentsova.

The homily after the Communion verse was delivered by Priest Grigory Kulikov.

At the conclusion of the Liturgy, Metropolitan Alexander congratulated those gathered on the celebration in honor of the Kozelshchanskaya Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God and delivered a sermon.

“A serious spiritual problem with which fasting helps a person to cope is complacency, the conviction – if not of one’s righteousness, then at least of a certain personal sinlessness: ‘I have not killed, I have not robbed, and so on.’ But, as Blessed Augustine testifies: ‘Even if we do not have individual mortal sins such as murder, adultery or other similar ones, nevertheless taken together they are deadly because of their multitude.’ In the eyes of God an evil word and an outburst of anger are equated with murder – of this Christ Himself warns us in the Sermon on the Mount: whoever says to his brother, ‘fool,’ shall be liable to the hell of fire (cf. Matt. 5:22). According to St John of Shanghai: ‘A small blade of the grass of lawlessness is as accursed before the Lord as the great tree of crime.’ Having accepted and realized this fact, we will be able truly to repent before God, remove pharisaical arrogance from our hearts and set ourselves on the path of correction. Venerable Theodore of Damascus teaches: ‘The first sign of the beginning health of the soul is the vision of one’s sins as countless as the sand of the sea.’” From the sermon of Metropolitan Alexander.