Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God at the Main Church of the Diocese

On 21 September 2019, the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God, Metropolitan Vikenty of Tashkent and Uzbekistan, head of the Central Asian Metropolitan District, celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Dormition Cathedral in Tashkent. The All-Night Vigil was served there the evening before.

Concelebrating with His Eminence were Priest Vitaly Golban, Priest Andrei Lin, Protodeacon Alexander Nesin and Deacon Rustik Kovalev.

After the Liturgy a hymn of glorification of the feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God was sung, and Metropolitan Vikenty then addressed the faithful with his archpastoral word of instruction, congratulating everyone on the feast:

“This feast opens the new church year. This is no accident, for it is the feast that announced to all people the great joy they had awaited for many centuries: that the Deliverer of the world, Christ the Saviour, would come to redeem the human race from sin, the curse and death.

By God’s special providence that Virgin was born Who served the mystery of the Incarnation of God, the incarnation of the Son of God. A remarkable feature of this birth is that the parents of the Mother of God, Joachim and Anna, had long been childless, and this Child was their first and last. They had a child in old age. It would seem impossible to bear children at such an age, but the faith of the parents of the Mother of God, their piety, patience and humility were all crowned with a special joy, with this success in their spiritual life. That is, they did not despair; they hoped and believed that all things are possible with God. This faith, hope and love for God were fulfilled in deed, even though it seemed impossible. But what is impossible for man is possible for God. And the Lord showed His strength and might through the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God.

While Joachim and Anna had no children, they did not murmur or complain; they intensified their prayer even more and made their pious life even more devout.

We have this tendency: if something does not work out, if something we ask of God is not fulfilled, we murmur, complain, judge and turn away. How many cases there are when people, not having received something, renounce God, because they prayed once, twice, three times, and the Lord did not give them what they asked for. They become anxious and irritated, and that is it: they depart into a far country.

But if we look at Joachim and Anna, they showed a whole life’s labour: they were humiliated and insulted, because in those days families without children were considered to have sinned before God in some way, and therefore the Lord did not give them a child. Such families were constantly humiliated and insulted by society and the world around them. And they (Joachim and Anna) endured this, although they were very pious people. The Lord tested their faith and patience. And they endured everything to the end, and it was all crowned with success: they gave birth to the Maiden Who served the salvation of the whole human race. She became the Vessel of God’s grace, containing within herself the uncontainable God, and gave birth to the Son of God by the Holy Spirit.”

The archpastor noted that if in our modern world there are families with similar difficulties, through this the Lord also calls them to a more pious family life, to prayer, to a true Christian life.