The head of the Metropolitan District consecrated the newly created altar paintings in the Kazan Cathedral in Almaty

April 20, 2024. Alma-Ata. On Saturday Akathist, before the start of the Divine Liturgy in the oldest church of the southern capital - the Cathedral in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in the "Little Stanitsa" - Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan consecrated the newly created altar paintings.

The consecration ceremony was attended by the president of the Apostle public foundation, Georgy Gennadievich Sosnovsky, the initiator of the full-scale professional restoration of the Kazan Cathedral and its beautification.

At the end of the Liturgy, the Head of the Metropolitan District thanked the icon painters, led by the iconographer G.P. Kiseleva for their efforts and called upon God’s blessing for their future activities. The hierarch said special words of gratitude to the church’s patron, G.G. Sosnovsky and employees of the Apostol Foundation he heads.

The work on creating the altar paintings of the Kazan Cathedral was carried out over four months by a group of five Almaty icon painters under the direction of the isographer G.P. Kiseleva. The area of the painted walls and vaults was 168 square meters. The main plot of the completed works is dedicated to the event of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the altar apse there is an image of the Resurrection of Christ surrounded by angels, on the northern and southern walls there are angels and saints glorifying the risen Lord Jesus, on the crossbar of the iconostasis wall there is an image of the Savior Not Made by Hands. The host of saints depicts the new martyrs and confessors of Kazakhstan: Metropolitan Nicholas of Alma-Ata (Mogilevsky), Bishop of Vernensky Pimen (Belolikov), Bishop of Peter and Paul Methodius (Krasnoperov), Schema-Archimandrite Sebastian (Fomin), Hieromonks Seraphim (Theologian) and Theognost (Pivovarov), priests Vasily Kolmykov from Zharkent, Vissarion Selinin from Urdzhar, Vladimir Tsedrinsky from Lepsinsk, priest Parfeniy Krasivsky, who served in the Kazan Cathedral and suffered for Christ on the porch of his native church. Next to the saints of God is placed the figure of the ascetic of piety of the twentieth century, the ever-memorable Metropolitan Joseph (Chernov), revered by a huge number of Orthodox believers both in Kazakhstan and far beyond its borders.

Previously, the isographer Galina Kiseleva, together with her assistants, worked on painting the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Almaty and the St. Gabriel Church in the city of Taldykorgan.