9 January 2021 года

Festive celebration at St. Stephen’s side chapel of Our Lady of Kazan Cathedral

The Diveyevo monastery celebrates the patronal feast today. The right side chapel of Our Lady of Kazan Cathedral was consecrated to the Holy Protomartyr and Archdeacon Stephen.

 

The services such as the Vigil, Paraklesis with the water blessing prayer service and the Divine Liturgy were served there today. The festive services were also held at the Trinity Cathedral and the Church to the “Reigning” Icon of the Mother of God.

 

“The Payroll Book of the monasteries, churches, and chapels of the Ryazan Diocese” dated 1676 reads that there is a church to Holy Archdeacon Stephen in Diveyevo of the Shatsky county and the Kadom tithes that constituted of a vacant rectory, deacon Taraska’s household, and thirty-five parish member households. In 1779, St. Stephen’s wooden church was knocked down and a stone church was built instead. By the command from the Queen of Heaven, its main altar was dedicated to the Icon of Our Lady of Kazan, while one of its side chapels was dedicated to Holy Protomartyr and Archdeacon Stephen.

 

According to the tradition, Matushka Alexandra, the church founder, desiring to learn of the will of God, prayed to receive the admonition from the heavens about the patron of a new side chapel. During her prayer vigil, she heard someone knocking at her window and a voice was heard: “Dedicate this chapel in my honor.” “But who are you, O Lord?” matushka asked. “Protomartyr and Archdeacon Stephen is my name.”

 

After the restoration of the Kazan Cathedral, desecrated under communism, the altar to the Holy Protomartyr and Archdeacon Stephen was consecrated for the second time on September 8, 2004, by His Grace Bishop Georgiy (who is currently a Metropolitan) of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas.