On September 14, 2023, the beginning of the Indiction and on the feast day of St. Simeon the Stylite, Bishop Nestor of Togliatti and Zhigulyovo celebrated the Divine Liturgy of the Old Russian rite in the house church of St. Nicholas in the parish in honor of the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles in the village of Koltsovo, Stavropolsky district, Zhigulyovo sub-district.
His Eminence was accompanied by Hieromonk Siluan (Starostin), rector of the parish, resident of the Resurrection Monastery of Togliatti, clergyman of the Lyskovsk diocese, rector of the old ritualist Church in honor of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God in the village of Maloye Murashkino, Hieromonk Sergius (Gaponov), clergy of the Kuznetsk diocese: rector of the old ritualist Church in honor of St. Nicholas in the town of Kuznetsk Varsonofiy (Yashin) and the clergyman of the Ascension Cathedral of the city of Kuznetsk priest Sergius Borovikov. Deacon Konstantin Akimov, a cleric of the Moscow City Diocese, served in the rank of deacon.
The Divine Liturgy was accompanied by the choir of the Church of Holy Protection in the village of Maloye Murashkino of the Lyskovo diocese, performing liturgical hymns in Znamenny chant. The choir was led by the chorister Serafim Vodopyan. During the service the secretary of the Togliatti Diocese, Priest Dionisiy Buntsev, the dean of the Zhigulyov district of the Togliatti Diocese, Priest Kirill Zimin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, head of the Samara Diocesan Archive, expert on the history of the Edinoverie in the Volga region, Protodeacon Alexis Podmaritsyn, the clergy, members of the parish community prayed.
The midnight vigil, the meeting and vesting of the bishop, the reading of the third, sixth, and ninth hours, and the Divine Liturgy were celebrated according to the ritual sequence adopted in Russia under the first five All-Russian Patriarchs and in more olden times. At the end of the Liturgy, Hieromonk Silouan thanked Bishop Nestor for the Liturgy. His Eminence delivered a sermon on the spiritual inner core of a Christian.
Bishop Nestor established the tradition of divine services in the Old Russian rite in the newly formed Diocese of Togliatti, using the experience of interaction with the Old Believers during his administration of the Kuznetsk Diocese. Old ritualists are a part of the Old Believers who have joined the Russian Orthodox Church while preserving their liturgical customs and the Old Russian way of life.
A small community of monastics has formed and lives at the church in the name of the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles in the village of Koltsovo. The village is crossed out of the list of settlements, as gradually after the second world war it was deserted. However, the believers of Togliatti with the blessing of Archbishop Sergius of Samara and Syzran (now Metropolitan of Samara and Novokuibyshevsk) in 2006 built here a church and a cell block with a refectory and a house church in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in memory of the church that was in the village before the revolution.
The parish was attached at different times to the Resurrection Monastery of the city of Togliatti and the Theotokos-Kazan Monastery of the village of Vinnovka. After the formation of the Diocese of Togliatti in July 2019, in August, Bishop Nestor of Togliatti and Zhigulyovo visited the parish and appointed Hieromonk Siluyan (Starostin), cleric of the Resurrection Monastery of Togliatti, as rector of the church. With the blessing of the ruling bishop, services are conducted according to the old rite.
