Message of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ to the Organizers, Participants, and Guests of the Celebrations Marking the Consecration of the Church-Memorial under Construction Dedicated to the New Martyrs and Confessors of Shymkent at L

Your Eminence, Metropolitan Alexander! Your Eminences and Your Graces! Venerable Fathers! Dear brothers and sisters!

I cordially congratulate you all on this significant event: the consecration of the church under construction in honor of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Shymkent.

Built at Lisya Balka, this church reminds us of the spiritual feat of the many thousands of innocent sufferers for the faith of Christ who received the crowns of martyrdom here during the harsh years of persecution against the Church. This place became the resting place of prominent Orthodox hierarchs of the last century, including Metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov) of Kazan, Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh), Archbishop Alexy (Orlov), Bishop Eugene (Kobranov), as well as other archpastors and pastors, monastics, and laypeople.

The Church is built up and strengthened by the blood of martyrs, which, in the words of Tertullian, the renowned writer of antiquity, is the seed of Christianity. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church, according to the unfailing promise of the Saviour (Matthew 16:18). The memory of the martyrs’ spiritual feat strengthens us in our many labors and helps us preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3), so that we too may, in the words of the Apostle, grow into a holy temple in the Lord and be built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:21–22).

This event is a triumph of historical justice, which the persecutors of the Church sought by every means to trample underfoot by bringing charges of fabricated crimes against those who suffered.

I extend my heartfelt gratitude to the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Kemelevich Tokayev, who supported my initiative to build a church-memorial here. I also express my appreciation to the authorities of Shymkent, who gave their consent for this project to be brought to fruition, as well as to the benefactors and all those who labored to create this memorial complex.

May the new church, dedicated to the New Martyrs of Shymkent who suffered at Lisya Balka, become a true adornment of this land and a visible testimony to the power and glory of God and to the prayerful intercession of the saints who shone forth in the land of Kazakhstan.

+ KIRILL

PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUS’

Shymkent

October 10, 2026