On December 18, 2021, on the eve of the memorial day of St. Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra of Lycia, the Wonderworker, responsible for organizing the care of Russian-speaking believers in the territory of the Republic of Turkey, Priest Georgy Sergeyev performed an evening service with the reading of the Akathist in the St. Nicholas Church in Myra of Lycia (modern Demre, Turkey).

The service was attended by Priest Alexy Golovin and Priest Dimitri Bogatyr, clerics of the Moscow Patriarchate, who are tending the communities of the Russian Orthodox Church in Antalya and Alanya.

On December 19, the feast day of St. Nicholas of Myra, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated in Demra.

At a special litany, prayer petitions were offered for deliverance from the spread of coronavirus infection, as well as a petition for doctors.

The service was attended by pilgrims from different regions of Turkey, as well as Russian specialists working on the construction of a nuclear power plant in Akkuyu.

At the end of the Liturgy, a holy water prayer service was held.

Then a funeral service was held for A.G. Karlov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Turkey, who was killed by a terrorist on December 19, 2016 in Ankara.

Believers laid flowers at the monument to the hero of the Russian Federation A.G. Karlov. Demre is a sister city of the small homeland of A.G. Karlov - the city of Klintsy, Bryansk region. The main street of Demre bears the name of the late Russian Ambassador to Turkey.