Concluding his archpastoral visit to the parishes of the Samarkand Deanery, Metropolitan Vikenty of Tashkent and Uzbekistan, head of the Central Asian Metropolitan District, celebrated the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts on 1 March 2018 at the Church of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos in Karshi.
His Eminence was assisted by the clergy of the Samarkand Deanery.
After the service, Metropolitan Vikenty addressed the worshippers with an archpastoral word, paying particular attention to Great Lent:
"In these days of Great Lent we need to read the Gospel more often and try to do what is written there, not merely read it without fulfilling it in our lives. The Gospel is the book of life, which must be fulfilled and not only known. By reading and not fulfilling it, we bring greater condemnation upon ourselves, for it is written in the Gospel that if a person knows yet sins, he will be beaten with many stripes, and if he does not know yet sins, he will be punished less. But this does not mean that we should not know the rules of Christian life in order to be punished less; rather, we must know them and fulfil them. For this we have literature that should teach us the rules of Christian life with Christ, for the sake of Christ, for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven and our eternal salvation.
We who are believers living on earth live not in order to settle ourselves comfortably here, but in order to settle ourselves well in heaven, and to attain heavenly life through our earthly life. Through a sinful earthly life we, alas, attain eternal condemnation. But through a good and virtuous earthly life we attain for ourselves life eternal, blessed and free of pain. As rational beings, the highest creation of God, we must strive to acquire in this earthly life eternal joy in the Kingdom of God. And for this we now have everything: we have the church, the sermon, literature, the Sacrament of Repentance, the Sacrament of Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ; we have everything, we need only to make use of it and do the will of God. This leads us into the Kingdom of Heaven, to eternal salvation.
Dear brothers and sisters, I congratulate all of you on today's service. Thank you for coming to our service, and may God give you strength and fortitude to labour without sloth for yourselves and for your salvation, so as truly to acquire a new life with Christ, to acquire the virtues of Christ in your personal lives, and to use these virtues in the world around us, among the people around us, applying them to show devotion to the will of God. Let us have faith in the true God, faith that the Lord sees our good deeds. These deeds glorify our Heavenly Father, and these deeds will glorify us too in the Kingdom of God."
