On 17 May, a festal Liturgy was celebrated at Saint Alexius Cathedral in honor of the feast of the Ascension of the Lord.

The festal service was led by the rector of the church, Priest Igor Babakov.

The name of the feast reflects the essence of the event: it is the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ into Heaven, the completion of His earthly ministry. This event is always celebrated on the 40th day after Pascha, on the Thursday of the 6th week after Pascha. The number 40 is not accidental but carries meaning. Throughout Sacred History it marked the completion of great labors. According to the Law of Moses, on the 40th day infants were to be brought by their parents to the temple, to the Lord. And now, on the fortieth day after the Resurrection, as if after a new birth, Jesus Christ was to enter the heavenly temple of His Father as the Savior of mankind. Having conquered death, that terrible consequence of sin, and thereby granted the possibility of rising in glory, the Lord raised up human nature in His own Person, including the human body. In this way the Lord opened to every person the possibility, after the general Resurrection, of ascending to the highest abode of light, to the very Throne of the Most High. The Evangelists Mark and Luke tell us of the event of the Ascension, and it is described in particular detail in the first chapter of the Book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles. Having given His disciples His final instructions, Jesus Christ "led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven. And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy..." The feast of the Ascension is the feast of Heaven, of Heaven opened to man as his new and eternal home, of Heaven as his true homeland. Sin separated earth from heaven and made us earthly, living by the earth alone. This is not about interplanetary space or the cosmos. It is about the Heaven returned to us by Christ, the heaven that we lost in earthly sciences and ideologies and that Christ has revealed and restored to us. Heaven is the Kingdom of God, the kingdom of eternal life, the kingdom of truth, goodness and beauty.

At the end of the Liturgy Fr. Igor congratulated the parishioners on the feast and thanked them for their common prayer.

Then the Akathist to the Ascension of the Lord was read.