New Martyrs & Confessors

Troparion for the New Martrys of Russia, “In joy the Russian Church forms a choir, praising her New Martyrs and Confessors: Hierarchs and priests, royal Passion Bearers, right-believing princes and princesses, venerable men and women and all Orthodox Christians, who during the days of godless persecution laid down their life for faith in Christ, and preserved the truth by the shedding of blood. By their protections, O long-suffering Lord, keep Russia in Orthodoxy till the end of the age.”

Today, the Orthodox Church commemorated the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. The event celebrates those who were subjected to abuse or murdered for their faith in Christ after the October Revolution in 1917. The date of the feast was chosen to coincide with the death of the first Hieromartyr of the Bolshevik Yoke, Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev.

In December 2018, my family and I visited Moscow’s Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors, which was completed in 2017 to mark 100 years since the Bolshevik Revolution. It’s nestled within Sretenksy Monastery – a cloistered Holy place founded in 1397 by Grand Prince Vasili I.

The origin of the monastery’s name comes from “Sretenie,” which is the Church Slavonic word for “meeting.” So, it was built on the spot where on August 26, 1395, the Muscovites and Vasili had “met” the religious icon of Our Lady of Vladimir, as it was moved from Vladimir to Moscow in order to protect the capital from Mongol attack. Soon thereafter, the invading heathen armies retreated and the grateful monarch founded the monastery to exalt the miracle.

In 1552, the Muscovites “met” again at the monastery walls when greeting the returning Russian army after their retaking of Kazan under Ivan the Terrible. This put an end to 100 years of Mongolian Khan rule in that southwestern Russian city.

Russia knows a thing or two about the tyranny of barbaric religiosity. But it was the atheist Communists who “disassembled” many of the older churches within the Sretensky. Some of the very same 14th-century structures that were present during the Rus’ conquest over the Golden Horde and stood reverently for 600 years were snuffed out in an instant by Soviet despotism.

Interestingly, the monastery is located in Lubyanka, an area of Moscow known for its infamous Soviet prison. It was said that if you were sent to Lubyanka, you’d never come back. The former NKVD headquarters are next door to Sretensky, as well.

Such is the irony that is woven into the fabric of modern-day Russia: a country whose past is filled with both pride and persecution, gloried sagas and shocking suppression, national identity and foreign rule, and whose future is built upon both ancient faith and modern aspirations.

The full body of Hieromartyr Hilarion Troitsky, Archbishop of Vereiya is in repose at the large Sretensky church. Images of New Martyrs and Confessors adorn the walls, columns, and ceilings, such as this icon of the Russian imperial family, the Romanovs.

Today’s Kontakion, “The New Martyrs of Russia stand in white robes before the Lamb of God, and with the angels they sing the hymn of victory to God: blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and praise, and honor, and power, and strength be to our God unto ages of ages. Amen.”

In July 1918, the Romanovs and their four servants (who chose to accompany them into imprisonment in Yekaterinburg) were shot and bayoneted to death by Bolsheviks – the final blow of the ascendant Soviets’ smashing of the old, traditional order, thus, solidifying the new, totalitarian state system.

There was debate as to whether the tsar and his family were “martyrs,” meaning people who are killed explicitly for their faith. But in 2000, Moscow Patriarchate Alexy II canonized the family as “passion bearers”: pious Christians who face death with resignation, but do so in a Christ-like manner.

It’s estimated that more Christians were martyred under Soviet Communism than were during the first three centuries of Christianity. “The Russian Church lost millions of its sons and daughters, not only at the hands of external enemies, but also those of their own country,” states the Orthodox Church in America. “Among those who were murdered and tortured in the years of persecution were countless Orthodox: laity, monks, priests, and bishops, whose only ‘crime’ was their unshakable faith in God.”

About 20 miles outside of Moscow in the Leninsky District is the Butovo Firing Range. Some call it the “Russian Golgotha,” as it was the site of industrial-scale executions that took place during Joseph Stalin’s Great Terror.

Between August 1937 and October 1938, an estimated 20,765 people were executed and buried at Butovo. About 1,000 of these victims were Orthodox clergy. These are the New Martyrs of Butovo, who are symbolized as the entombed saints at the bottom of the Butovo Icon.

The purge was at its height during these two years, with an average of 50 “enemies of the people” murdered here daily, although February 28, 1938, ranks first, with 562 people shot and killed on that one single date. Butovo remained a functioning “firing range” for dissidents until 1953.

In 2017, the “Garden of Memory” opened and is made of an angular horseshoe-shaped granite wall. At 984-feet long and 6 1/2-feet high, the giant monument features the names of those who perished at Butovo only between 1937-1938 – a shocking testament to the evils of Communism.

During Divine Liturgy today, the Gospel reading was Luke 21:8-19, which advised the weary to be strengthened in Christ and the distracted to stay focused on the Son of Man. The Lord said, “Take heed that you are not astray; for many shall come in My name, saying ‘I am he!” and ‘The time is at hand!’ Do not go after them. And when you hear of wars and tumult, do not be terrified; for this must first take place, but the end shall not be at once. … there shall be great terrors and great signs from heaven.“

“But before all this they shall lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you shall be brought before kings and governors for My name’s sake. This shall be a time for you to bear testimony. … You shall be delivered up even by parents and brothers and kinsmen and friends, and some of you they shall put to death; you shall be hated by all for My name’s sake. But do not a hair of your head shall perish. By your endurance you shall win your souls.”

Russia’s New Martyrs and Confessors are a witness to this. It’s like my priest explains, “Our salvation is much more than … simply being saved from something. It is rather being saved to something.” Through their tribulation and righteousness, these saints were never separated from the love of God. That is salvation. That is freedom.

The saints are a lesson in rebirth and redemption. St. John Chrysostom preached that “We have been freed from punishment, we have put off all wickedness, and we have been reborn from above, and we have risen again.”

In 1940, Archpriest Gregory Petroff clung to these truths as he died in a Soviet prison camp. Found on his dead body was the “Akathist of Thanksgiving,” which was written by Metropolitan Tryphon of Turkestan during the height of Communist oppression in the 1930s.

“No one can put together what has crumbled into dust. But You can restore a conscience turned to ashes; You can restore to its former beauty a soul lost and without hope.” The new martyrs and confessors – preservers of truth through the shedding of blood – are a lived reminder of this. Let us not forget. Beauty for ashes.