« On Holy Saturday, Bishop Matthew of Sourozh celebrated the Liturgy at the Dormition Cathedral in London »

On 19 April 2025, on Holy Saturday, His Grace Bishop Matthew of Sourozh celebrated Vespers with the reading of 15 paremias and the Divine Liturgy of St Basil the Great at the Dormition Cathedral in London.

His Grace was assisted by Archpriest Maxim Nikolsky, Dean of the Diocesan District of South East England Archpriest Vitaly Polischuk, Secretary of the Sourozh Diocese Archpriest Dimitry Nedostupenko, Archpriest Nikita Kozlov, Priest Alexander Kapustin, Protodeacon Vadim Santsevitch and Deacon Nektariy Baska.

The liturgical chants were performed by the choir of the Dormition Cathedral under the direction of Dmitry Tugarinov.

According to the tradition of Great Saturday, after the apostolic reading, before reading the Gospel, the clergy changed their black Lenten vestments for white ones.

After the litany of fervent supplication, Archpriest Dimitry Nedostupenko proclaimed the prayer "For peace in the Holy Land".

At the post-communion verse, Bishop Maitheus awarded the altar server of the church, Alexander Pabst, the right to wear the orarion.

After the prayer after the communion, the Right Reverend Archpastor blessed the bread and wine and addressed the clergy and parishioners with words of the sermon.

Then the consecration of the newly painted church icon of St. Luke, Archbishop of Crimea and Simferopol (1877-1961) took place.  Expressing words of appreciation and gratitude to the benefactors and icon painters for their help and work in creating the icon, Vladyka noted that, with God's help and with the kind participation of the parishioners and church founders, other icons will be painted for the cathedral, and placed in the icon cases in the church.

Then Bishop Matthew read a prayer for the blessing of cheese, eggs and a prayer for the blessing of food and meat, and sprinkled the Easter offerings with holy water.

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