The patronal feast of the church was celebrated on 19 December 2020, the feast of St. Nicholas of Myra the Wonderworker, at the Holy Trinity St. Nicholas Convent in Tashkent. On this day the festal Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Metropolitan Vikenty of Tashkent and Uzbekistan, head of the Central Asian Metropolitan District, and on the eve the archpastor celebrated the All-Night Vigil at the Dormition Cathedral.
Concelebrating with His Eminence were Mitred Archpriest Igor Balukhatin, Archpriest Ioann Kuleshov, Hegumen Nektary (Blinov), Priest Alexander Balukhatin, Protodeacon Alexander Nesin, Deacon Valery Ryzhov and Deacon Pyotr Gnatik.
Praying at the service were the superior of the convent, Abbess Ekaterina (Malgina), with the sisters of the holy monastery, students of the catechetical and precentors' departments of the Tashkent Orthodox Theological Seminary, as well as parishioners of the church and pilgrims.
At the end of the Liturgy a procession of the cross was held in honour of the patronal feast, after which Metropolitan Vikenty addressed the faithful with his archpastoral word, greeting all present on the feast of St. Nicholas and the patronal feast of the convent church. Speaking in his sermon about the life and labours of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, His Eminence noted:
"He was granted great gifts through the service with which he served Christ. The closer he drew to Christ, the more he received from Him those gifts which he now generously shares with us. He is ready to help each of us at any moment of our life and to share the great grace he received by labouring in humility, patience and obedience to the will of God, in the struggle of renouncing his own will; and in this way he received the great grace which he has been sharing for many centuries now. That is, he listened to the voice of Christ the Saviour, who says: 'I am the vine, you are the branches.' That is, if you abide on this Vine, you will be nourished by the sap of God's grace and will have everything, because in God is all fullness: grace, power, strength and so on. The closer we are to this life-giving power of Christ, the stronger and greater we are. And the further we move away from this Source of God's grace, from Christ the Saviour, the more the branch withers, and then it is cut off and thrown into the fire, because it is good for nothing.
We can see an example of such striving towards Christ in our holy saints of God. We must not say: 'But they are saints.' They were the same ordinary people living on earth. And yet they were able to attain this perfection. Why? Because they thought about Christ, about spiritual struggle, about how to reach this spiritual height. And the Lord, seeing the aspiration of their hearts, gave them the strength to attain it.
When we are in union with Christ, there flows from this Vine the power that raises us up, strengthens us and, most importantly, cleanses us. Cleansed by the grace of God, we can do a great deal of good."
