On the Day of the Holy Spirit, the Head of the Metropolitan District Presided over the Patronal Feast of the Annunciation

June 1, 2026 – the Day of the Holy Spirit; the commemoration of the holy right-believing Great Prince Demetrius Donskoy and Great Princess Eudocia, in monasticism Euphrosyne. On the Monday following Pentecost, the Church celebrates the feast in honor of the Holy Spirit, established “for the sake of the greatness of the Most Holy and Life-Giving Spirit, Who is one of the Holy and Life-Originating Trinity,” in opposition to the teaching 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 at the Church of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Alatau microdistrict of Alma-Ata, where the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the National Nuclear Center of the Republic of Kazakhstan is located. The lower church of the Annunciation parish is dedicated to the holy right-believing Prince Demetrius Donskoy.

Concelebrating with the Head of the Metropolitan District were: the vicars of the Astana Diocese – Bishop Gennady of Kaskelen, Chancellor of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District, and Bishop Klavdian of Taldykorgan; Archpriest Valery Zakharov, Dean of the churches of the Southern Capital and rector of St. Nicholas Cathedral; Archpriest Evgeny Vorobyov, rector of the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Joy of All Who Sorrow in Alma-Ata; Archimandrite Joseph (Yeremenko), Head of the Diocesan Department for the Canonization of Saints; Hegumen Onisim (Tulnikov); Hieromonk Dimitry (Baidek), Personal Secretary to the Head of the Metropolitan District; Hieromonk Prokhor (Yendovitsky), Head of the Metropolitan’s Secretariat; Priest Georgy Sidorov, Head of the Administrative Secretariat of the Head of the Metropolitan District; Priest Nikolai Matlashov; Protodeacon Nikolai Grinkevich; Protodeacon Roman Golovin, Head of the Metropolitan’s Protocol Service; Deacon Rustik Yakupov; and Deacon Georgy Tkachenko.

For the prayerful veneration and spiritual strengthening of the faithful, a reliquary containing relics of St. Luke of Crimea was brought to the church.

The hymns were sung by the choir of the Annunciation Church under the direction of E. Skorova.

Praying during the divine service were Orthodox residents of the Alatau microdistrict and faithful from neighboring communities.

The sermon following the Communion verse was delivered by Hieromonk Dimitry (Baidek).

At the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy, a festal glorification (slavlenie) was held before the icon of the Most Holy Trinity and of the holy right-believing Prince Demetrius Donskoy, after which His Eminence congratulated Bishop Klavdian, the clergy, and parishioners on the patronal feast day of the church and addressed those gathered with a word of archpastoral instruction.

In the lower church dedicated to the holy right-believing Prince Demetrius, Metropolitan Alexander and the clergy chanted the magnification to the saintly servant of God of the Don.

“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 given life and exalted in purity,’ as it is said in the well-known hymn of the All-Night Vigil.

We heard from Sacred Scripture the account of how, on the fiftieth day after the Resurrection of Christ from the dead, the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles, and they received the strength to go forth and preach everywhere, throughout the whole world, the teaching of the Lord and Savior. For this preaching, they gave the most precious thing a human being possesses – their lives. By their labors and martyrdom, the Apostles bore witness to the truth of the teaching of Christ – He who came into this world to seek and save the lost, He who desires that every person should come 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 happiness to belong; the Church in which we are sanctified and enlightened through participation in the saving Mysteries; the Church founded not by men, but by the Son of God Himself, and which, according to His unfailing promise, the gates of Hades shall never overcome.

In the Orthodox Church, we received Baptism, being born for eternal life; here we are chrismated, in order to be strengthened by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which bear their gracious fruits – peace, joy, faith, long-suffering, goodness, and mercy.

We, as children of the Church, must love Mother Church with all our hearts and reverently strive toward the temples of God, so that we – earthly as we are – may touch the incorruptible, we – temporal beings – may partake of the eternal and imperishable.

Here, in the holy churches, we come to understand the depth of spiritual truths and learn the moral beauty of the Gospel teaching. Here, in the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, we journey upon the road of salvation – from earth to Heaven.”

From the homily of Metropolitan Alexander.