On October 9, 2021, on the day of the repose of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, Priest Georgy Sergeyev, responsible for the care of Russian-speaking believers in the territory of the Turkish Republic, celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the church at the burial place of the holy apostle in the Turkish town of Selcuk near Ephesus. Priest Dimitri Bogatyr, responsible for the care of the faithful of the Moscow Patriarchate in Alanya, also took part in the service.
Numerous pilgrims who arrived from Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa, Antalya, Alanya, Kusadasi, as well as a group of pilgrims from the Moscow region, prayed at the service.
At a special litany, prayer petitions were offered for getting rid of coronavirus infection, a petition for doctors, as well as a prayer, during the spread of a malicious plague, something.
At the end of the Liturgy, Father George preached a sermon. The priest thanked the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey for the permission to perform the service, as well as the chairman of the Solzhenitsyn Russian Society of Culture A. Ponomarev and the Society of Orthodox Russian-speaking Believers of Antalya province under the leadership of K. Alykan for their help in organizing the pilgrimage of believers.