The head of the Metropolitan District held a memorial service for all those innocently tortured and killed during the years of persecution of Orthodoxy

November 7, 2024 is a day of mourning and remembrance for all those who suffered from the godless government in the 20th century - the anniversary of the October Revolutionary Coup of 1917, which took the lives of millions of people and marked the beginning of a period of persecution of the Church of Christ in the countries of the former Russian Empire.

Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan held a memorial service for all "those innocently tortured and killed during the years of godless persecution, who died from hunger, cold, wounds, illnesses and hard labor" in the Church of the Holy Martyrs Vera, Nadezhda, Lyubov and Sophia at the Patriarchal Metochion of the city of Moscow - the Representative Office of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District.

The archpastor prayerfully remembered the victims of the historical tragedies experienced by our country in the 20th century.

The employees of the Representative Office and parishioners of the church prayed at the funeral service.

Requiems and litias were held in all churches of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District.

“Today, November 7, we remember a tragic date - the anniversary of the October Revolution, which marked the beginning of unprecedented persecution of the Church of Christ.

Hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Christians - hierarchs, clergy, monastics and laity - were arrested and destroyed under various pretexts. Many of them were shot, often without trial or investigation, ended their lives in prisons and camps, died of hunger, cold, disease and backbreaking labor.

The hardships and torments endured by the clergy and believers, the suffering of confessors and the blood of martyrs are an offering to world Orthodoxy, a contribution of our people to the treasury of holiness of the Universal Orthodox Church. The persecution of faith in Christ that began had a special impact on Kazakhstan. The feat of the sufferers of the last century, who stained the vast expanses of the Great Steppe with their blood, allows us to figuratively speak of our country as an "antimension spread out under the open sky". Today we realize that thanks to the sacrifice of our predecessors, the church revival became possible at the turn of the last and current centuries. Martyrs and confessors brought closer the onset of times favorable for the life of Orthodoxy, it was they who, with their courage, fortitude and the strength of Christian virtues, were able to return to the public consciousness the sublime, noble image of the Church, which in the 80s and 90s of the 20th century brought many of our compatriots to churches. Today, we, the clergy and active laity, face an important task: to reveal the feat of each of the Kazakhstani saints to their contemporaries, to help each Orthodox Christian of the Metropolitan District to spiritually assimilate the meaning and fruits of their labors. According to His Holiness Patriarch Kirill: "Our love for the new martyrs themselves must be expressed in preserving the living testimony of their feat." Eternal and grateful memory to all who suffered for their faith in God, for the eternal Gospel truths, for their love for their native Orthodoxy. Eternal memory to all who innocently suffered during the years of godless hard times." From the words of Metropolitan Alexander.