The reading of the Great Penitential Canon of St. Andrew of Crete has ended during the first week of the Holy Forty Days (+VIDEO)

March 6, 2025 – Thursday of the first week of Great Lent; celebration in honor of the "Kozelshchanskaya" icon of the Mother of God.

In the morning, Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan prayed at the statutory service in the Iveron-Seraphim house church of the metropolitan residence.

In the evening, His Eminence celebrated Great Compline in the Ascension Cathedral in the city of Almaty.

The final part of the Great Penitential Canon of St. Andrew of Crete was read at the service.

The heads of departments of the Metropolitan District, clergy of the Ascension Cathedral, employees of the Alma-Ata Diocesan Administration, and parishioners prayed during the service.

The hymns of Compline were performed by: the choir of the Metropolitan District under the direction of Honored Artist of Russia O.N. Ovchinnikov and the choir of the Ascension Cathedral under the direction of E. Boguslavets.

After reading the canon, the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan addressed the congregation with a word of edification.

A live broadcast of the reading of the canon of St. Andrew of Crete was held on the YouTube channel of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District "Semirechie".

The Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, which was read in parts from Monday to Thursday of the first week of Lent, in accordance with the liturgical Typikon will be read in full at Matins on Thursday of the 5th week of Lent during the service traditionally called the Standing of Mary of Egypt – on the evening of April 2.

“A serious spiritual problem that fasting helps a person cope with is a complacency, conviction, if not in righteousness, then in any case, in some kind of personal sinlessness: “I did not kill, did not rob, etc.” But, as Blessed Augustine testifies: “Even if there were no individual mortal sins for us, such as murder, adultery or other similar ones, however, taken together they are deadly in their multiplicity.” In the eyes of God, an evil word and a flash of anger are equal to murder - Christ Himself warned us about this in the Sermon on the Mount: whoever says to his brother, "You fool," will be in danger of the fire of hell (see Matthew 5:22). According to Saint John of Shanghai: "A small herb of lawlessness is as damned before the Lord as a great tree of crime." By accepting and realizing this fact, we can truly repent before God, remove pharisaical arrogance from our hearts and embark on the path of correction. Saint Theodore Damascene teaches: "The first sign of the soul's incipient health is the vision of one's sins, as countless as the sand of the sea." From the sermon of Metropolitan Alexander.