The first hierarchical Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts of this year’s Great Lent was served today in the Trinity Cathedral of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery. Metropolitan Georgiy of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas celebrated the service. Concelebrating His Eminence was Bishop Innocent of Sormovo, vicar bishop of the Nizhny Novgorod Diocese.

The Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts reveals in the fullest extent possible the depth and sorrow of the Holy Forty Days. This service is imbued with a particular spiritual beauty: the Heavenly Powers invisibly serve the King of Glory: “Now the powers of heaven serve invisibly with us. Behold, here comes the King of Glory.” A great number of prostrations, hymns of penitence and praise fill the soul of a believer with desire to be in the presence of Christ, calling us to keep ourselves in chastity and strictness.

The Holy Gifts were consecrated on Sunday, and Christ, with His Immaculate Body and Blood, abides already on the altar, filling with His mysterious presence anything that takes place today in the church: prayers, psalms, and Old Testament readings.

Following the Communion, Rev.Fr. Alexiy Kurnosov of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery congratulated everyone with Wednesday of the first week of Great Lent. “Before the beginning of the Holy Forty Days, the Lord appealed to all of us with the verses of the Prokeimenon: ‘Seek God, and your soul shall live.’ This is a goal worthy of taking on fasting and chastity, as ever since the time of the Old Testament, the path of chastity has been fundamental in order to see and hear God,” said the preacher.

Fr. Alexiy pointed out to all of the faithful that the believers often impose upon themselves a great labor of fasting in order to come closer to God and to meet the Bright Resurrection of Christ with pure heart, but it does not always work this way: we show a great zeal in one thing and ignore another. What is the essence of fasting then? The answer lies in a prayer of the liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts: “And let our eyes abstain from every evil sight, our hearing be inaccessible to idle words, let our tongues be purged of unseemly speech. Make clean our lips which praise thee, 0 Lord; make our hands refrain from base deeds, and to work only that which is well pleasing to thee, fortifying our members and minds by thy grace.”

“The most important thing for us is to stay away from sin, while fasting assists us in this. This is a great gift from God,” concluded Fr. Alexiy.

After the conclusion of the Liturgy, the head of the Nizhny Novgorod Metropolia heartily thanked the singers, readers and all those who prayed at the service wishing that God helps them to diligently traverse Lent.

Following that, hegumenia Sergia, the sisters of the monastery and the faithful took part in a prayerful procession along the Holy Kanavka headed by Metropolitan Georgiy.