Appeal Heads of the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan metropolitan of Astana and Kazakhstan Alexander on the occasion of bringing the miraculous icon to Kazakhstan – the miraculous image of the Lord Jesus Christ

All-honorable fathers, dear brothers and sisters!

On the eve of Great Lent, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus', a miraculous relic is brought to the southern capital of Kazakhstan, the city of Alma-Ata, a miraculous shrine is brought – miraculous image of Lord Jesus Christ.

This ancient icon of the Savior, glorified by many miracles, kept in the Dormition Paisiev Monastery in the city of Galich in the Kostroma Metropolis. It was written in the 19th century by a talented painter and a man of high spiritual life – a peasant of the Samara province Grigory Nikolaevich Zhuravlev. History knows many outstanding icon painters, but the works of Grigory Zhuravlev are truly amazing. He was born with a severe injury - deprived of arms and legs, but strengthened by faith in God and hope in His wise Providence, he was able not only to survive, but also to realize the desires of his heart, to give a huge number of contemporaries and descendants the joy of contemplating sublime works church art. Creating icons, Gregory showed unprecedented perseverance - for days, until his muscles hurt, rubbing his gums and lips into blood, he worked with a brush. With ardent love for God and people, he painted holy images, which to this day amaze with fine detail, a deep sense of color and sublime triumph of the spirit. “God helps him,” said his fellow countrymen, who saw how Gregory paints icons. And he himself always humbly emphasized that his talents and skills were a gift from Above. “I manage my skill according to the command of God,” this is how the righteous icon painter spoke of himself. Even during his lifetime, Gregory was revered by the Orthodox people as a righteous man and an ascetic; Currently, preparations are underway for his glorification in the face of saints.

If you carefully look at the lower part of the Icon Not Made by Hands, which we now meet, you can see a brief inscription made by the iconographer himself: “This icon was painted with the teeth of a peasant Grigory Zhuravlev.” This image, deeply revered by the Orthodox people, is truly Not Made by Hands - both in terms of the traditional iconographic name and the amazing story of its creation.

The meeting with the miraculous shrine from the ancient Galich monastery carries deep moral lessons. Most of our existence, as the Psalmist testifies, is labor and sickness (Ps. 89:10). There are moments when a heavy spirit of despondency approaches a person who is in cramped circumstances, his strength is gone and the understanding of how to continue his life path is lost. At this difficult moment, at a time of impotence and weakness, it is necessary to remember the words of the Apostle Paul: “I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). The Lord Himself, through His supreme disciple, instructs us that not everyone can be strong, wise or talented. And intellectuals can commit stupidity, and the strong can weaken, and the gifted can bury talent in the ground, but a sincere believer in Christ, strengthened and enlivened by His grace, is able to overcome all sorts of obstacles, withstand any difficulties, since “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” (Lk. 18:27). “Where the power of God is, there infirmities disappear,” teaches St. Theophan the Recluse.

When we pray before the image of the Savior, look with reverence at the holy face of Christ - the Light of the world (John 8:12), faith is strengthened in us, since the icon gives us the opportunity to see the invisible God, before whom angelic forces and all creation tremble, allows us to come into contact with the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven. If ordinary pictures help a person to see the past, then the icon helps us to see the past and the present, the future and the eternal. The icon of the Lord clearly testifies to one of the main dogmatic truths of Orthodoxy, which is that God became a true man in order, through the perception of human nature, to save him from the power of sin and lead him to deification. We have been given the image of Christ so that we like the king of the city of Edessa Abgar, about whom an ancient tradition tells us, receive deliverance from our mental and bodily ailments in fulfillment of the gospel testimony: “And the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all” (Luke 6:19).

We express our gratitude for the opportunity to venerate the shrine in the year of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District to His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' and we sincerely thank the custodian of the Icon Not Made by Hands, Bishop Alexy of Galich and Makarievsk.

“We worship Your most pure image and asking for forgiveness of our sins, Christ God,” the Holy Church cries out, glorifying the Icon of the Lord Not Made by Hands. May the bringing to the borders of Kazakhstan of the miraculous face of the Savior, created by the righteous icon painter Gregory, bless our good works and undertakings, sanctify the Great Steppe, confirm us all in doing good deeds and inspire us to fervent prayer for the eradication of all malice and the increase of love, as in our families, among relatives and friends, and throughout our country and around the world.

Invoking God's blessing

HEAD OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF KAZAKHSTAN

METROPOLITAN OF ASTANAI AND KAZAKHSTAN