On the day of remembrance of the holy martyr Nicodemus of Kostroma, Metropolitan Alexander led the Liturgy in the Epiphany Cathedral of the Kostroma Kremlin

August 21, 2024 - the afterfeast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, a celebration in honor of the Tolga Icon of the Mother of God, the day of remembrance of the holy martyr Nicodemus, Archbishop of Kostroma.

Metropolitan Alexander celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Epiphany-Anastasia Cathedral of Kostroma - the main church of the Kostroma Metropolitanate.

His Eminence was co-served by: the head of the Kostroma Metropolitanate, Metropolitan Ferapont of Kostroma and Nerekhta, Bishop Alexy of Galich and Makaryevsk; Secretary of the Kostroma Diocese, Mitred Archpriest Valery Bunteyev, Head of the Administrative Secretariat of the Head of the Metropolitan District, Priest Georgy Sidorov and clergy of the Kostroma Metropolitanate.

The service was adorned with the singing of the bishop's choir of the Kostroma Metropolitanate under the direction of Honored Worker of Culture of Russia N.V. Balueva.

The sermon on the communion verse was delivered by Archpriest Valery Bunteyev.

The liturgy ended with the glorification of the Transfiguration of the Lord, the Feodorovskaya Icon of the Mother of God, and the holy martyr Nicodemus, Archbishop of Kostroma.

The head of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District cordially thanked the Most Reverend Archpastors, clergy, monastics and laity for the joy of common prayer at the holy throne in the ancient Epiphany-Anastasia Cathedral, congratulated everyone on the holiday and delivered a sermon.

After the service, Metropolitan Alexander, in recognition of his efforts to develop relations between the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan and the Kostroma Metropolitanate, presented Bishop Ferapont with the Order of "Enbek Ushin" (For Work).

The head of the Kostroma Metropolitanate addressed the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan with words of gratitude, noting the special merit of Metropolitan Alexander in the revival of Orthodoxy in the Kostroma land.

Based on materials from the Kostroma Metropolitanate website.

On August 21, the day of the celebration of the appearance of the miraculous Tolga Icon of the Mother of God, in 1938, after much torture and abuse from the atheists in the Yaroslavl prison in Korovniki, Archbishop of Kostroma and Galich Nikodim (Krotkov) departed to the Lord.
The confessor's feat of the hierarch has a direct relation to the land of Kazakhstan. On August 27, 1926, on the eve of the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God, by the resolution of the Special Conference under the Collegium of the OGPU, Saint Nikodim was sentenced to another punishment - exile for three years to Southern Kazakhstan.
Metropolitan of Astana and Kazakhstan Alexander, before his appointment to the Kazakhstan cathedra, headed the Kostroma and Galich diocese for more than twenty years. Bishop Alexander initiated the canonization of the new martyrs and confessors of the 20th century, who accomplished their feat during the years of godless persecution of the Church in the Kostroma land. Among the Kostroma ascetics of faith and piety, the holy martyr Archbishop Nikodim (Krotkov) glorified the Lord with his exploits and sufferings.
Bishop Alexander dedicated a large scientific work to the ascetic life, suffering and martyrdom of Archbishop Nikodim: "The Holy Martyr Nikodim: Life Dedicated to God and People."
"Vladika Nikodim is a saint of modern times; people who knew him lived until recently, the churches in which he performed divine services and the houses in which the saint lived have been preserved. That is why his image is especially close to us and at the same time filled with spiritual greatness: after all, in his episcopal service and martyrdom we see a reflection of the entire history of the Russian Orthodox Church of the 20th century. Like all the new martyrs of our Church – archpastors, pastors and laymen who accepted a painful death for confessing the faith of Christ after the events of 1917 – Saint Nicodemus, with his life, turns our thoughts to the feat of the martyrs and confessors of the first centuries of Christianity, by whose blood the Church of God was built. The fate of the saint is inseparable from the history of Russia in the 20th century. The stages of his biography reflect significant events in Russian history: the revolution of 1905, the murder of P.A. Stolypin, the First World War, the revolution of 1917, the church schism in Ukraine, the civil war, the renovationist schism of the 1920s... The saint, who came from an old priestly family (all his ancestors, starting with his great-grandfather, served in the Nerekhta district), lived in several villages of the Nerekhta and Kostroma districts in his childhood, graduated from the Kostroma Theological School and the Kostroma Theological Seminary, and was a teacher at a parish school in the village of Olesh in the Galich district. The future new martyr was ordained to the priesthood in Kostroma. After several decades of service in the Caucasus, Pskov, Moldova, Ukraine, Crimea and Central Asia, in 1932 Saint Nicodemus returned to his homeland, and his episcopal service at the Kostroma cathedra in 1932-1936, in the conditions of increasingly severe persecution of the Church, became the main period of his life, crowned with a martyr's feat. Saint Nicodemus is a true martyr. Of the 21 years of his life in the post-revolutionary period, he, already an elderly and sickly man, spent about 13 years in prisons and exile. The last 2 years before his death he was imprisoned in the Yaroslavl prison in Korovniki, where in 1938 his earthly path ended. On March 27, 1995, on the day of the celebration of the miraculous Feodorovskaya Icon of the Mother of God, the canonization of the holy martyr Nicodemus took place among the locally venerated saints of the Kostroma diocese. His canonization became a tribute to the memory of all the new martyrs of the Kostroma region, known and unknown to us. This book is the first attempt to describe the life of Saint Nicodemus, unusually rich in events and significantly expanding the range of our knowledge about the modern history of the Russian Orthodox Church based on available documentary evidence. From the preface to the book "Holy Martyr Nicodemus: a life dedicated to God and people." You can read about the life of the holy martyr Nicodemus in the article by Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan "The Decoration of the Kostroma Region"