Metropolitan Alexander met with students who entered the Almaty Seminary this year

September 1, 2025. Almaty. In the building of the spiritual, cultural, and administrative center of the Kazakhstan Metropolis named after Metropolitan Joseph (Chernov), Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan met with students of the Almaty Orthodox Theological Seminary who were admitted to the first year of the pastoral and choir-conducting faculties following the entrance examinations.

Present at the meeting were: the rector of the Almaty Seminary, Candidate of Theology, Protopriest Evgeny Ivanov; and the vice-rector for academic affairs, Priest Petr Bakhtiyarov.

Addressing the participants, the Metropolitan congratulated the students on their admission to the theological school, offered a brief overview of the seminary’s history, and shared his reflections on the particular character of theological education in multinational and multiconfessional Kazakhstan.

A key theme emphasized by the Head of the Metropolis was preparation for pastoral ministry. Speaking to the students, Metropolitan Alexander noted in particular:

“The years of study in the seminary allow a young man who desires to dedicate himself to the service of the Church of Christ to prepare comprehensively for pastoral work, helping him to create a firm foundation for further intellectual and spiritual development. This time should be filled not only with diligent learning of theological and secular disciplines, but also with the acquisition of spiritual experience – through prayer, participation in the sacraments, through the inner, profound encounter with the Holy Eucharist. Receiving this priceless experience at a young age, a person acquires the inner strength and ability to calmly and convincingly answer the questions of contemporaries, to bear witness to the greatness and beauty of Orthodoxy.

It is necessary to expand your horizons daily: to study Holy Scripture and the writings of the Holy Fathers, dogmatics, history, literature, foreign languages, musical disciplines. Yet at the same time, the seminary student’s ‘auditorium No. 1’ is always the temple of God.

I wish that such a wise ordering of your life – the harmonious development of the spiritual and intellectual – would help you become worthy laborers in the vineyard of Christ, capable of influencing the surrounding world, speaking brightly and inspiringly to modern society about God and His Kingdom come in power.

The level of your preparation will, in the near future, largely determine whether people are drawn to the churches, whether they will find in sermons answers to vital questions, and whether they will discover in the Church that love which the Lord commanded us in the Gospel. Education is always synergy – the cooperation of teachers and students, a shared labor of administration, mentors, and learners. Be united in this noble endeavor and do not forget the measure of responsibility laid upon you by Christ, the Chief Shepherd.”

As a memento of the meeting, each student received from His Eminence a copy of the Holy Gospel and the Metropolis calendar for 2026.