On the Day of the Holy Spirit, the Head of the Metropolitan District celebrated the Liturgy at the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross in Almaty

June 24, 2024 is the day of the Holy Spirit. On the Monday following Pentecost, a holiday is celebrated in honor of the Holy Spirit, established by the Church “for the sake of the greatness of the Most Holy and Life-giving Spirit, as one is from the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity,” in counteraction to the teachings of heretics who rejected the Divinity of the Holy Spirit and His consubstantiality with God the Father and the Son of God.

Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan performed the Divine Liturgy at the church in honor of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the Karasu microdistrict.

Concelebrating with the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan were: Bishop Gennady of Kaskelen, manager of the affairs of the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan; Vicar of the Astana diocese, Bishop of Talgar Benjamin; rector of St. Nicholas Cathedral, mitered archpriest Valery Zakharov; rector of the Almaty Church in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” Archpriest Evgeny Vorobyov, dean of the Ili church district Archpriest Alexander Zyryanov, keymaster of the Peter and Paul Church of Alma-Ata Archpriest Kirill Shklyar, head of the Metropolitan’s personal secretariat Hieromonk Prokhor (Endovitsky), head of the administrative secretariat Head of the Metropolitan District Priest Georgy Sidorov, cleric of the Holy Cross Church Priest Roman Burdukov, cleric of the Holy Cross Church Hieromonk Vladimir (Mishchenko), cleric of the Kazan Cathedral of Alma-Ata Priest Georgy Rublinsky; Protodeacon Nikolai Grinkevich, head of the Metropolitan Protocol Service, Protodeacon Roman Golovin, Protodeacon Vladimir Syrovatsky, Deacon Deacon John Churkin, Deacon Pavel Kornienko.

The chants were performed by the men's choir of the Alma-Ata diocese under the direction of Deacon Alexander Pivny.

The sermon on the sacramental verse was delivered by Archpriest Valery Zakharov.

At the end of the service, glorification took place before the icon of the Most Holy Trinity - the clergy, choir and worshipers performed the troparion, kontakion and magnification of the holiday.
His Eminence addressed those gathered with a word of archpastoral teaching.
“Today is the Day of the Holy Spirit - a holiday dedicated to the Third Hypostasis of the Life-Giving Trinity. “By the Holy Spirit every soul is quickened and exalted by purification,” says the famous hymn of the all-night vigil. We heard from the Holy Scriptures the story of how, on the fiftieth day after the Resurrection of Christ from the dead, the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles, and they received the power to go and preach everywhere, across the face of the whole earth, the teachings of the Lord and Savior. For this sermon they gave the most precious thing a person has - their life. Through their labors and martyrdom, the apostles testified to the truth of the teachings of Christ - the One who came to this world to seek and save the lost, who wants every person to know the truth of God. The Feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles is the birthday of the Church to which you and I have the happiness of belonging; The Church in which we are sanctified and enlightened by participating in the saving Sacraments; A Church founded not by people, but by the Son of God Himself, and which, according to His false promise, the gates of hell will not prevail forever. In the Orthodox Church we received Baptism, being born for eternal life, here we are anointed to be strengthened by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which bear their gracious fruits - peace, joy, faith, patience, kindness, mercy. You and I, the children of the Church, must love the Mother Church with all our hearts and strive with reverence to God’s churches, so that we, the earthly, can touch the imperishable, and we, the temporary, can join in the eternal and imperishable. Here, in holy churches, we comprehend the depth of spiritual truths, learn the moral beauty of the gospel teaching. Here, in the Church, led by the Holy Spirit, you and I walk the road of salvation - from earth to Heaven.” From the sermon of Metropolitan Alexander.