Assumption Cathedral: the largest Russian Orthodox church in Central Asia, in a capital built from nothing

Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan, moved from Almaty by decree of President Nursultan Nazarbayev on 10 December 1997. It was renamed Nur-Sultan in 2019, in his honour, and named Astana again in September 2022, after the unrest of January that year. The Assumption Cathedral was built there between 2006 and 2010. It stands 68 metres high, the largest Russian Orthodox church in Central Asia and the seat of the metropolitanate of Astana and Kazakhstan. It was consecrated on 17 January 2010 by Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, on his first primatial visit to the country. He celebrated the liturgy there and read a prayer for the new martyrs and confessors of Kazakhstan. Kirill returned on 29 May 2012, for a memorial service, and again on 18 September 2025, during the eighth Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, held in Astana since 2003 at Nazarbayev’s own initiative as a showcase of the country’s religious tolerance. President Nazarbayev visited the cathedral on 7 January 2012, the day of Orthodox Christmas. The Russian president Vladimir Putin visited on 15 October 2015, during a state visit, and gave it, according to Russian sources, an icon of the Mother of God of the Pokrov. The present metropolitan, Alexander (Mogilev), has led the see since 2010, his elevation coinciding with the consecration of the cathedral itself. Kazakhstan is largely Muslim — 69.3 per cent at the 2021 census — with an Orthodox Christian minority of 17 per cent, mostly ethnic Russians, who make up 14.9 per cent of the population. The country actively promotes an image of interfaith tolerance through the Congress and through parallel monumental projects, such as the Hazrat Sultan mosque, the largest in Central Asia, opened in 2012. Independent bodies, however — the United States State Department, the USCIRF and Forum 18 — record systematic restrictions, arrests and administrative sentences against religious practices that are not officially recognised, in particular among Salafi Muslims and Christians converted from Islam. That record sits badly with the official account of interfaith harmony. Pope Francis did not visit this cathedral during his journey to Kazakhstan of 13-15 September 2022, contrary to a low-quality tourist source: the official Vatican itinerary records only a visit to the Catholic cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, seat of the Catholic archdiocese of Astana, a different building of a different confession. Patriarch Kirill himself did not attend that year’s congress in person, because of the tensions between the Vatican and Moscow over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.