On May 21, on the eve of the memorial day of St. Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra of Lycia, the Wonderworker, an evening service with the reading of the Akathist was performed in the St. Nicholas Church in Myra of Lycia (modern Demre, Turkey).
On May 22, the day of the memory of St. Nicholas of Myra, the priest responsible for the organization of the care of the flock of the Moscow Patriarchate in the territory of the Republic of Turkey, Georgy Sergeyev, celebrated the Divine Liturgy in Demra. The service was attended by Priest Alexy Golovin and Hieromonk Palladiy (Bystrov), clerics of the Moscow Patriarchate, who are tending the communities of the Russian Orthodox Church in Antalya and Akkuyu.
At a special litany, a prayer for Holy Russia was read.
More than 400 pilgrims from different regions of Turkey, as well as Russian specialists working on the construction of a nuclear power plant in Akkuyu, prayed at the service.
At the end of the Liturgy, the faithful took part in a prayer singing to St. Nicholas.
Then Father George congratulated all those present on the day of the transfer of the relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker from the Lycian World to the Italian city of Bari. The priest thanked the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey and the management of the museum in Demre for the permission to perform the service, as well as the Society of Orthodox Russian-speaking Believers of Antalya province and the Russian Society of Art and Culture of Antalya for their help in organizing the pilgrimage of believers.
The celebrations on the occasion of St. Nicholas Day ended with a festive meal.