On 1 January 2021, the day of the civil New Year and the feast of the holy Martyr Boniface and Venerable Elijah of Murom, the head of the Central Asian Metropolitan District, Metropolitan Vikenty of Tashkent and Uzbekistan, celebrated a night Divine Liturgy at the Dormition Cathedral in Tashkent, having served a polyeleos service the evening before.
Concelebrating with His Eminence were Priest Georgy Fominov, Hieromonk Spiridon (Pozdeev), Priest Pavel Bylin, Priest Andrei Lin, Priest Igor Sladkov, Protodeacon Alexander Nesin, Deacon Grigory Khimonidi, Deacon Dimitry Zemtsov and Deacon Alexander Bogotobin.
Also praying at the Liturgy was the abbess of the Holy Trinity St. Nicholas Convent in Tashkent, Hegumenia Ekaterina (Malgina).
After the prayer before the ambo and the dismissal, Metropolitan Vikenty also served a moleben (service of supplication) for the beginning of the New Year and then addressed the worshippers with an archpastoral word in which he congratulated the parishioners on the New Year and on the feast of the holy Martyr Boniface and Venerable Elijah of Murom:
"We understand that happiness, God's good will and success in the coming year will be ours when we live piously. And so we begin this pious life in the new year with this Divine service, with our night vigil, with our standing in prayer before God, so that the Lord may forgive all our transgressions, turn away His righteous anger that is moved against us, and have mercy on us according to His great mercy.
We lived through the past year with many difficulties, sorrows and illnesses. The Lord visited us in a special way through this epidemic. It was very hard for us; many of us fell ill, and some very gravely. We know that these illnesses were given to us by God to cleanse our souls from sins and defilement. We accepted this chastisement with gratitude to God and said: 'Glory to God for all things: for sorrow, for sickness, for joy.' This thanksgiving brings us comfort even in the most sorrowful moments of our life. We had to exercise ourselves in this good work in order to draw God's special mercy upon us. Many accomplished this feat of thanking God, understanding that these sorrows and difficulties, this virus, are a means of cleansing our souls from sin. God grant that the Lord may accept our repentance and our cleansing and grant us mercy and blessing in the coming year, that this virus may pass us all by, and that we may live the life the Lord has given us, glorifying and thanking God and praying to Him that the coming year may be prosperous and blessed for all of us, and that God's blessing may abide with us all the days of the coming year.
Dear brothers and sisters, today, on this night of 1 January 2021, we begin by glorifying the Martyr Boniface and Venerable Elijah of Murom. From them we draw the strength and inspiration for the coming year to be blessed, so that in this year we may acquire grace and the power of God, which helps us become partakers of eternal blessed life."
