Maryinskaya, the Stavropol administrative territory (North Caucasus in the south of Russia), January 1, 2016
On the night of December 31, 2015, the 78th anniversary of the martyrdom of New Hieromartyr Thaddeus (Uspensky; 1872-1937), Archbishop of Tver, this saint was commemorated at the Church of the Holy Archangel Michael in the Maryinskaya stanitsa (Cossack village), reports Blagoslovenny Kavkaz.
Before the service rector of the stanitsa’s church Archpriest Sergy Akimenko read out the Life of New Hieromartyr Thaddeus to the faithful.
The Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Archpriest Sergy Akimenko, rector of the Church of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God in the town of Novopavlovsk Archpriest Dionisy Nazarov, and rector of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the Stavropavlovskaya stanitsa Priest Alexander Vologin.
Cossacks from the Maryinskaya Stanitsa Association, Cossacks from the Stavropavlovskaya stanitsa along with parishioners of churches of the Novopavlovsk Deanery came to commemorate the memory of the saint whose name is inseparably linked to the blessed Caucasus.
The service was celebrated before the icon of Hieromartyr Thaddeus of Tver, with a small portion of his holy relics, at the very same hour as the holy hierarch was cruelly murdered back in 1937.
After the post-communion verse the speech of St. Thaddeus which the archpastor had delivered during the consecration of the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul in the Novopavlovskaya stanitsa in November 1916 was read.
After the Divine Liturgy (at which many of the worshippers took Holy Communion) the clergy sang the glorification before the icon of St. Thaddeus.
Then all the faithful and clergy were invited to the meal prepared by local Cossacks. After that, a sermon by the famous Moscow cleric Archpriest Andrei Tkachev, dedicated to the podvig of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, was watched and discussed.
The night Liturgies commemorating the martyrdom of Holy Hierarch Thaddeus of Tver were served at churches of the deanery already for the third time.
On December 13, 2013, Archbishop Theophylact of Pyatigorsk and Cherkessk delivered the reliquary with a portion of relics of Hieromartyr Thaddeus to the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Novopavlovsk.
