On 19 August 2021 the Orthodox world celebrated the feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ. On this day the head of the Central Asian Metropolitan District, Metropolitan Vikenty of Tashkent and Uzbekistan, celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Dormition Cathedral in Tashkent. The evening before, the All-Night Vigil was served here.
Concelebrating with His Eminence were Priest Vitaly Golban, Priest Grigory Khimonidi, Protodeacon Alexander Nesin, Deacon Rustik Kovalev, Deacon Luka Irgashev and Hierodeacon Makary.
After the Liturgy Metropolitan Vikenty blessed the apples and grapes of the new harvest and then addressed the worshippers with an archpastoral word in which he congratulated the faithful on the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, drawing several important lessons and instructions from this event:
"Throughout His earthly life the Lord Jesus Christ always withdrew at night and prayed. By this He calls all of us to prayer. And we see the fruit of this prayer: the Lord was transfigured. That is, His face became like snow and His garments were shining. By this the Lord revealed the glory of His Divinity. From this feast of the Transfiguration you and I are assured that God is unapproachable light. And we always pray that the Lord fill us with grace, for this grace is the light that enlightens our mind, heart, feelings, desires and our whole being.
This is what the fruit of our prayer to God should be when we stand in prayer at home. We must burn with love for God so as to be united with Him in prayer, to be sanctified, enlightened and illumined, so that the Divine light may touch us and illumine our mind, heart and whole being. In conversing with God we partake of this Divine light. This Divine light is also a fire that burns away our sins when we pray and repent of them. That is why prayer is of such great importance.
What prevents the Divine light from illumining us as it illumined, for example, the prophet Moses? Our sins. Sins are menacing dark clouds that do not let the sun reach the earth. We know that when clouds cover the sky, sunlight does not reach the earth. In the spiritual sense these clouds are our sins, which do not allow the Divine light to enlighten our soul. The rays do get through, of course, but very faintly. Yet we must still take care to remove these sinful clouds, our sinfulness, from our life, and strive to make our life accord with the rules the Lord has established here on earth. We must live by these rules and not break them.
Unfortunately, we set our own rules, which contradict the laws of God, and so we lose much: we lose the Divine fire that could illumine us and protect us from all evil, from demonic power, from all the viruses that are let loose upon us and cause us much suffering and torment and fill us with fear and terror. We need to have more fear of God than fear of catching these viruses, which are, of course, terrible and deadly. But we must understand that these viruses are permitted because of our sins. And the cleansing of our soul allows the Lord to turn these viruses away from us, and He has such power.
It is very important that we understand this and do not follow the lead of sins that are presented to us under the guise of goodness, pleasure, delight and comfort. That is what moving away from God is. And moving away from God is drawing near to the devil, to evil. Therefore, if we want to be delivered from evil, we must draw near to Christ God, the light that illumines, heals and shields us from all evil, misfortune and calamity. God grant that we understand this, and that the Divine light which illumines us throughout the world on this day of the Transfiguration of the Lord may enlighten our hearts and minds, so that we may look soberly at the situation of the world and civilization around us and decide to follow the path of light, the path of the Kingdom of God."
