“The twentieth century, the century of the millennium of the baptism of Rus', became at the same time an era of cruel persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church. The destruction and desecration of churches, the desecration of shrines, the mockery of believers and the murder of innocent people - all this presented a picture of the Way of the Cross of Christ, which was followed by thousands of Orthodox people, whose weapon was their faith. Among them are bishops and priests, monastics and laity, people of different classes, men, women and children.” More than 1,600 of them, who suffered for Christ, are now glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church. Thus, the Russian Orthodox Church brought to Christ “the fruit of its Calvary sufferings - a great host of holy Russian martyrs and confessors of the twentieth century.”
The day of celebration of the Council of New Russian Martyrs and Confessors, revealed and not revealed to the world, but known to God, is celebrated on January 25 / February 7, if this day coincides with a Sunday, and if it does not coincide, then on the nearest Sunday after January 25 / February 7.
Now, in each diocese, work continues to collect information about those who suffered for their faith, and materials are being prepared for the canonization of saints who have not yet been glorified. To get the most complete picture of the scale of persecution, let’s look at the numbers. The unique Database that exists at the St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Humanitarian University, “Those who suffered for Christ,” will help us with this. Today we offer readers an interview with its creator - the head of the department of computer science at the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Humanitarian University, Professor Nikolai Evgenievich Emelyanov.
– Nikolai Evgenievich, please tell us where and how it is carried outwork to collect information about those who suffered for their faith in the twentieth century?
The collection of information about the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century is carried out in such large centers as the Synodal Commission for Canonization, the Foundation “Memory of Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Orthodox Church” and the St. Tikhon Orthodox Humanitarian University.
The Canonization Commission receives all the lives of the new martyrs, prepared in the dioceses, they are studied and either sent to the localities for revision, or put forward to the Meeting of the Holy Synod for canonization. The Commission's collection contains the lives of all canonized saints and those new martyrs whose canonization is being prepared. Currently, 1,596 people who suffered for their faith have been canonized. The commission publishes “The Lives of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in the 20th Century.” By 2006, three volumes had been published: January, February, March, containing about 300 lives, as well as “Lives of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian 20th Century of the Moscow Diocese,” compiled under the general editorship of Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna.
The collection of the Foundation “Memory of Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Orthodox Church” is the result of the titanic work of Abbot Damaskin (Orlovsky) to study materials related to the new martyrs, confessors and ascetics of piety of the twentieth century. The main focus of the Foundation’s activities is « preparation of comprehensive biographical materials that can form the basis for canonization » . Seven volumes have been published, in which about 900 biographies-lives are described, the Foundation is presented on the Internet ( www. fond. ru).
Unlike the Commission and the Foundation, which collect information about ascetics who have already been canonized, or whose canonization is being prepared, the Database of the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Humanitarian University collects information about all those who suffered for Christ, including those whose canonization is not in question. costs. Briefly, it can be described as a database of repressions against the Russian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century. Based on the Database, the monograph “Those who suffered for Christ” was published, containing more than 4,000 biographical references. As of January 1, 2007 on the PSTGU website ( www. pstbi .ru) presents 29,000 biographies.
– Could you tell me more details?about the features of the database created at PSTGU?
The purpose of the work carried out at PSTGU, naturally, has its own specifics.
Firstly, the Database is not only a huge collection of hagiographic and historical information that cannot fit into any book, but is also a tool for their scientific research and processing. Secondly, it is a powerful information system that provides not only a quick search for various information about a specific person or event, but also the automatic compilation of complex summaries, graphs, charts for comparing information obtained from different sources, etc. This aspect can be called scientific.
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Biographical materials are located in the Database according to a scheme consisting of sequentially filled blocks: name, holy order, photographs, date and place of birth, information about education, ordination, tonsure, work, places of service and residence, works, awards, arrests, exiles, imprisonment, information about death, burial, and about church-wide or local canonization (if it was carried out). As a commentary, each block can be accompanied by a story about certain striking episodes in the life or circumstances of the death of the person who suffered for the faith, and sometimes a detailed article about some outstanding church figure. In addition, there are links to documents, publications, applicants, that is, to sources of information.
There are more than one hundred details in the Database, they can be repeated. There are many biographies that contain hundreds of individual facts. The total number of such historical microfacts in the Database is millions. Microfacts in history are facts from the lives of individual people, not only monarchs and major political figures, but also priests, singers, watchmen - in our study - all Orthodox Christians repressed for their faith. The science of the 20th century is characterized by such an appeal to the nature of micro phenomena (quanta in physics, concepts of micro- and macroeconomics). Processing such a volume of facts can only be done using a computer.
– How often do researchers access the Database?“Those who suffered for Christ,” is it possible to cite somespecific examples of working with the database?
– The database has been used in scientific research and publishing activities of PSTGU for about fifteen years. Examples of use Databases can be divided into groups according to the methods used: simple search using one criterion, statistical evaluations and search using multiple criteria, using complex search and involving other databases. The first major work in which the “Those who suffered for Christ” database was used was the preparation for the publication in 1993 of the Acts of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon.
The database is a source of biographical indexes. For example, all PSTGU publications on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church of the twentieth century are supplied with name indexes, for the compilation of which a database is used.
Help machine in our Database, approximately one hundred details are built automatically, which provides special opportunities for identifying historical patterns. The database allows you to display lists of all people involved in one case; everyone who served in the chosen region, city, temple; studied at a specific educational institution, etc. In addition, you can determine the source of each fact noted in the database. This may be a link to state archives or the PSTGU archive.
With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy, with the help of the Database “Those who suffered for Christ,” lists of possible candidates for canonization were quickly prepared for all ruling bishops for the historic Council of Bishops in 2000. For each diocese, special programs were written for the selection of victims for Christ who served or lived in the diocese. We received letters of gratitude from many bishops for their help.
The “Those who suffered for Christ” database is a source for creating new church iconography. For the Council of 2000, our University (at that time the Orthodox St. Tikhon’s Theological Institute) received the blessing of the chairman of the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints, Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna, to paint the icon “The Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian 20th century.” The icon was painted in the University workshops under the guidance of the rector, Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov, and the dean of the Faculty of Church Arts, Archpriest Alexander Saltykov.
To create this icon, about 1000 photographs were selected from the Database, on the basis of which more than 100 faces were painted and stamp plots were developed. The database is an indispensable source that icon painters often turn to. I would like to draw attention to the icon of the Hieromartyr Metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov) of Kazan, painted at the University. This icon streamed myrrh abundantly on the first day of the celebration of the memory of the Hieromartyr Cyril on November 20, 2000. Everyone praying in the church that day remembers this event with spiritual trepidation.
The database “Those who suffered for Christ” also allows you to identify general picture of the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century. Based on the information collected in the database, repression graphs were constructed to assess the statistics of persecution.
In the presented figures, the top line is the arrest graph; the bottom line is the execution schedule. They give a clear idea of the ratio of persecutions over the years. For a person with a technical education, these graphs are an example of a self-exciting system. Such systems collapse if there is no external influence. The external influence that stopped this process of self-destruction was the Great Patriotic War.
These graphs were built when there were 3, 10, 20 thousand victims in the Database. Qualitatively, the picture of the waves of persecution remained unchanged. The waves grew proportionally upward. Thus, the Base allows us to estimate the total number of victims for Christ in the twentieth century in Russia from half a million to a million people and the final size of the waves of persecution.
Persecution of hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century. We have data on repressions that were applied to 440 bishops. Of these, 237 archpastors were shot or tortured in custody. But even these huge figures of losses among the Orthodox episcopate are far from exhaustive, and we can expect an increase in this list.
The second graph shows that the repressions aimed at the hierarchs - the Supreme Church Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church - were planned and regular. Thus, the figure shows that fluctuations in the intensity of repression by 1.5 - 2 times from 1923 to 1936 do not represent clearly pronounced waves of persecution (like the previous figure), but rather are one continuous ongoing process. And therefore we can say that the main blow of the atheistic government was directed at the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Voluntary exile. An example of using complex associative searching in all fields and details of the Database can serve as a search for voluntary exiles - those girls and women who went for their spiritual and natural fathers, grooms, husbands.
Serves this purpose request : wife, let's go or found in prison or exile, husband(or father's daughter or bride groom). There are more than two hundred similar biographies in the database. We don’t know everyone, which means that there were thousands of voluntary exiles.
Hieromartyr Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, writes about “martyrdom of compassion and works of mercy in times of peace.” How especially difficult were the works of mercy during times of persecution. « If the day of retribution and judgment finds us ready, hurrying, running in the field of charity, then the Lord will not leave us unrewarded... He will bestow a white crown for good deeds, and those who overcome during persecution... will crown them with a scarlet crown for suffering. » .
The example of a man in a hurry, running in the field of charity, in those difficult years is Agrippina Nikolaevna Istnyuk. She went with the blessing of Hieromonk Simeon (Kholmogorov) and her parents to fetch her spiritual father, Hieromonk Pavel (Troitsky). Vera Maksimovna Sytina saved her fiancé Sergei Iosifovich Fudel in the camp. Elizaveta Aleksandrovna Samarina shared with her father Alexander Dmitrievich, the former chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod, all the difficulties of harsh exile to Yakutia. And many other similar women’s destinies are presented in the database of the new martyrs.
A very special example is the biography Nikolai Evgrafovich Pestov. (famous spiritual writer, professor). He went along the convoy to pick up his arrested wife Zoya Veniaminovna and saved her. She was exhausted by not knowing why she was arrested and what was happening to her three small children. The investigators told her that “her husband is in prison, the children are in the orphanage.”
Repressions in Russian universities. Thanks to the Database, it is possible to compare the percentages of those who suffered for Christ among graduates and teachers of nine Russian universities. The results obtained can be called an assessment of educational work in universities, as well as an assessment of the activities of these educational institutions that are corrupting the faith, since more believers came to universities than left them. Data obtained by dividing the total number of university graduates who suffered for their faith by the number of all university graduates in the 1880s - 1930s. they say that the highest percentage of victims was at Moscow State University (4.5%), St. Petersburg State University (3%), and almost the same at Kazan University (2.7%). It is interesting to compare the assessment obtained from the PSTGU Database with the results of the work of the Commission of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on the canonization of new martyrs and confessors, which receives information from the ruling bishops. The comparison results for these very different criteria turn out to be strikingly close.
Distribution of repressions by faculties of Russian universities. If we take the ratio of victims to the number of students, we get the following percentages for the faculties of all universities:
historical and philological - 9%, legal - 2%, physics and mathematics - 1.5%, medical - 1.5%.
That is, approximately every eleventh of historians and philologists suffered, every fiftieth of lawyers, approximately every seventieth of mathematicians, physicists and doctors. Such a noticeable difference in the number of victims can be explained either by the fact that there were six times more believing historians than believing mathematicians, physicists, and doctors, or by the fact that they, as ideological workers, were especially persecuted. The second reason is more likely.
The database contains many previously unknown facts about the affected bishops. Let us turn to a completely different source of information - the card index of M.E. Gubonin, posted on the PSTGU website under the name Database “Bishops and Dioceses”. The collector of the invaluable church-historical archive and the compiler of the collection “Acts of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon and later documents on the succession of the highest church authority”, published in 1994, M. E. Gubonin, before his death in 1971, secretly compiled a card index for the dioceses. When the “Acts” were published, it was automatically transformed into a card index for bishops, and published in the form of two directories: dioceses and bishops.
In these lists, the life events of about 100 bishops after the 1920s and 30s are established. Their biographies end with the words: “further fate is unknown.” These are those who retired or went into opposition to Metropolitan Sergius, and were listed as retired in the office of Metropolitan Sergius. This area is a blank spot in the history of our Church of the twentieth century. Over the past month, information has arrived about the execution of another hierarch. The white spot is slowly shrinking.
Comparison with data from the Memorial Society. A secret change in the direction of repression during the years of the “great terror” of 1937–1938. A study of the investigative files of all those shot at the Butovo training ground showed that approximately every twentieth person suffered for their faith, the same ratio is observed among the victims in Levashovo near St. Petersburg. Therefore, we can assume that in the lists of all those repressed, which are compiled by the Memorial Society, approximately 5% also suffered for their faith.
A comparison of the number of repressions by month shows that before February 1937, indeed, approximately every 20th person suffered for his faith. In March 1938, approximately every 40th person suffered for their faith, then every 100th. It cannot be that the punitive authorities of all regions accidentally changed the direction of repression - this is the result of influence from the center. An explanation for this phenomenon can be the fact that on April 16, 1938, a Resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued on the liquidation of the Commission of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee on religious issues (see, p. 25). Apparently this Resolution was prepared already in March, and it essentially meant the confidence of the Central Executive Committee in the final destruction of the Church and the possibility (from the point of view of the Central Executive Committee) to limit itself to approximately one hundred thousand already repressed and executed by that time, instead of the planned (according to Malenkov’s well-known letter) - six hundred thousand .
Statistics of names according to the database “Those who suffered for Christ”
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Ivan |
2005 |
Maria |
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Nikolay |
1681 |
Anna |
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Alexander |
1487 |
Alexandra |
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Basil |
1426 |
Evdokia |
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Michael |
1130 |
Praskovya |
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Peter |
Tatiana |
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Alexei |
Anastasia |
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Paul |
Catherine |
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Vladimir |
Olga |
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Sergius |
Elena |
The table shows statistics of names according to the “Those who suffered for Christ” database.
Judging by the table presented, the most common name among the new martyrs was the name John. Two thousand Ivanov were named in honor of John the Theologian, John the Baptist, John the Warrior, Chrysostom, etc. (there were a total of 68 saints with the name John in the Russian calendar). It is impossible to establish precisely about most of the new martyrs, after whom they were named. However, there were only seven Nicholas in the calendar, and St. Nicholas is the most revered among them, therefore, obviously, most of the new martyrs from almost thousand seven hundred Nikolaev. Therefore, the troparion to St. Nicholas “The Rule of Faith and the Image of Meekness” can serve as an expression of the spiritual ideal of the new martyrs and confessors of the Russian twentieth century. " By name and life "- a stereotypical formula of life...
Commemoration of the new martyrs.
It is natural that church people would want to remember those who suffered for Christ on the day of their death. On the PSTGU website it is easy to call up a list of everyone who suffered for Christ, whose memory is celebrated on a given day. Every day of the year there are victims, the lists include from 20 names to 161 names of the deceased. The largest repressions occurred on February 17 and December 28. On February 17, the number of dead was 161 (151 shot), including five bishops, the number of those arrested was 113. On December 28, the number of those arrested was the largest - 399, of which three were bishops, the number of dead was 81.
For each of those shot, died in custody, or arrested, there is a biographical certificate that contains all the information that we know about him today. Thus, on January 21, 1938, Archpriest John Apraksin was shot in Ulyanovsk at the age of 77. In total, 55 people were shot in the so-called “Ulyanovsk case,” mostly in the outskirts of the “Old” cemetery. Almost every day of the year can be associated with one or more places in Russia where the bulk of the victims were shot on that day. And so 50–100 victims every day.
29,000 names in the database.
In order to evaluate the result - 29,000 names , It is necessary to briefly recall the history of information collection.
In 1989, the Synodal Commission was created to study materials on the rehabilitation of the clergy and laity, working under the leadership of His Eminence Vladimir (then Metropolitan of Rostov and Novocherkassk). Appeals from His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II and the ruling bishops about the creation of the Commission and the collection of information were broadcast on radio and television, published in almost all newspapers, but the response was incredibly small.
Persecution and war did their job - the memory of the martyrs was practically erased. Of the hundreds of thousands who suffered for Christ, less than a thousand were named as relatives. Of course, in the early 90s, many old people did not believe that repression would not break out again. But the main thing was the destruction of the connection between generations, as a result of persecution and wars, because the witnesses either died or were silent during their lifetime.
In 1992, the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Theological Institute was created, the Commission practically did not work due to the fact that letters stopped arriving. In the same year, the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy was received “to concentrate work on the study of the history of the Russian Orthodox Church of the 20th century at the Orthodox St. Tikhon’s Theological Institute” and transfer to the Institute the archive of data collected by the Commission. It seemed impossible to collect 5,000 names, although it was clear that hundreds of thousands of believers had suffered. The next 15 years of work brought more than 27,000 names.
At the Department of Informatics of PSTGU, information about persecution is constantly collected, processed and entered into the Database. TO January 2007More than 29,000 biographical information and 4,600 photographs have been accumulated. Over 16 years of work, more than 50 people took part in it. Contrary to all expectations, the collection rate does not decrease, but increases.
What do we know today about the repression of hierarchs, clergy and laity?
The following were repressed: 4 patriarchs and 440 hierarchs. Every second of them was shot and tortured. Among more than 12,200 repressed clergy: archpriests - 1,600, priests - 8,700, deacons - 900. Every second or third was shot or tortured.
The database “Those who suffered for Christ” has been available on the Internet since 1996 at: www. pstbi. ru. Over 10 years of round-the-clock operation, the Database was visited by more than 500,000 people. ~ 3,000 pages are issued per day based on requests from Russia, CIS countries and the whole world.
A qualitatively new stage has arrived.
“I learned for the first time on the website of the Vitebsk Diocese about the date of execution of my grandfather by the Vitebsk Provincial Cheka; in response to my request to send me copies of the cases mentioned there, I was informed that all information about my grandfather was received from the PSTBI website and all the materials I was interested in were there.” As a result of correspondence, we received copies of priceless photographs.
Letter from Severo-Dvinsk (from the White Sea) by e-mail « urgent information: “it turns out that my wife’s grandfather suffered for his faith, and priest Nikolai Petrovich Smirnov suffered along with him, do you have information about him? » . We had three priests in our Database - Nikolai Petrovich Smirnovs. The one found in Severo-Dvinsk is the fourth.
A parishioner wants to donate an icon of a relative-new-martyr to the church; she needs a photograph to paint the icon and a life story that she wants to place in a frame next to the icon. I say that take the life from the books of Father Damascene, they answer that it is not there. Father Damascene did a tremendous amount of work and wrote about 900 lives, but 1,596 new martyrs have already been canonized, that is, almost twice as many.
New information came from Karelia about the priest who was shot on December 3, 1937 in Belbaltlag, on the Watershed (VII-VIII locks of the White Sea Canal). He comes from the Volyn region and served in the Zhytomyr region. A priest’s widow living in Orel wrote to us about him in the early 1990s: « Father was exiled to Solovki or Medvezhka. Letters from exile came at first, but then they stopped. The request was answered that Fr. Seraphim was sent to another place without the right of correspondence » . This means that children and grandchildren will finally know the day of death of their father and grandfather, which they have most likely been praying for for more than 50 years. We have already made more than 100 such messages to relatives by phone or in letters. Finding out the fate of the victims is only possible because all information from relatives, from churches, and archives is compiled into a single Database.
Conclusion.
Briefly, the second most important aspect of our work can be formulated as follows: The database, initially designed only to collect and preserve the grains of people’s memory remaining after a generation gap, itself serves to restore it and heal the tragic gap.
Obviously, there is a slow acquisition of memory. Connections are being recreated between new thousands of modern people who have already found faith or are moving towards it, with our saints - relatives by blood. New names support and speed up this process, which is why we are so happy about each new name and are in a hurry to announce them on the Internet. They create continuity with the great host of our holy martyrs and confessors who stand before the throne of God and constantly pray for the salvation of Russia.
70 years of persecution is a short moment in World history.
The Hieromartyr Cyprian wrote in the third century: « As a result of a short confession (of the name of Christ), disasters cease, joy begins, the kingdom opens, punishment is abandoned, death is expelled, life appears... Martyrdom is always high and important, but it is especially important now, when the world itself is coming to destruction, when the universe has partly been shaken, when the languishing nature presents evidence of the latest destruction » .
This word seems to be addressed to us after 18 centuries. It clearly makes it clear that thanks to the feat of the martyrs, our Church stands and life lives on.
Let us give another assessment of the significance of the martyrs, expressed by the famous German writer, Wehrmacht officer Ernst Gunther: “When Spengler warned against any war with Russia for reasons of space, then, as we could see, he was right. Each of the invasions (on Russia, N.E.E.) becomes even more doubtful for metaphysical reasons, since you approach one of the greatest bearers of suffering, the Titan, genius of martyrdom. In his aura, in the sphere of his power, you become involved in such pain that surpasses all imagination.” E. Junger “Radiations” M. 2002. P. 726
We do not remember the martyrs, but they pray for us and appear to us: in archival files, in prison photographs, in memoirs. Confirmation of the spiritual significance of the collection information About those who suffered for Christ, we have observed, for 10 years now, the correspondence of the growth in the number of names of new martyrs that we have found with the growth of newly opened churches in Russia. It is difficult to imagine this correspondence as a mere coincidence.
The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christianity!
On February 10, 2019, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church (traditionally, since 2000, this holiday has been celebrated on the first Sunday after February 7). Today there are more than 1,700 names in the Council. Here are just a few of them.
, archpriest, first martyr of Petrograd
The first priest in Petrograd to die at the hands of the atheistic authorities. In 1918, on the threshold of the diocesan administration, he stood up for women insulted by the Red Army and was shot in the head. Father Peter had a wife and seven children.
At the time of his death he was 55 years old.
, Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia
The first bishop of the Russian Church to die during the revolutionary turmoil. Killed by armed bandits led by a sailor commissar near the Kiev Pechersk Lavra.
At the time of his death, Metropolitan Vladimir was 70 years old.
, Archbishop of Voronezh
The last Russian emperor and his family were shot in 1918 in Yekaterinburg, in the basement of the Ipatiev House, by order of the Ural Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies.
At the time of the execution, Emperor Nicholas was 50 years old, Empress Alexandra 46 years old, Grand Duchess Olga 22 years old, Grand Duchess Tatiana 21 years old, Grand Duchess Maria 19 years old, Grand Duchess Anastasia 17 years old, Tsarevich Alexy 13 years old. Together with them, their close associates were shot: physician Evgeny Botkin, cook Ivan Kharitonov, valet Alexey Trupp, maid Anna Demidova.
And
The sister of the martyr Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, the widow of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who was killed by revolutionaries, after the death of her husband, Elisaveta Feodorovna became a sister of mercy and abbess of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent of Mercy in Moscow, which she created. When Elisaveta Feodorovna was arrested by the Bolsheviks, her cell attendant, nun Varvara, despite the offer of freedom, voluntarily followed her.
Together with the Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich and his secretary Fyodor Remez, the Grand Dukes John, Konstantin and Igor Konstantinovich and Prince Vladimir Paley, the Venerable Martyr Elizabeth and the nun Varvara were thrown alive into a mine near the city of Alapaevsk and died in terrible agony.
At the time of death, Elisaveta Feodorovna was 53 years old, nun Varvara was 68 years old.
, Metropolitan of Petrograd and Gdov
In 1922 he was arrested for resisting the Bolshevik campaign to confiscate church property. The actual reason for the arrest was rejection of the renovationist schism. Together with the hieromartyr Archimandrite Sergius (Shein) (52 years old), the martyr Ioann Kovsharov (lawyer, 44 years old) and the martyr Yuri Novitsky (professor at St. Petersburg University, 40 years old), he was shot in the vicinity of Petrograd, presumably at the Rzhevsky training ground. Before execution, all the martyrs were shaved and dressed in rags, so that the executioners would not identify the clergy.
At the time of his death, Metropolitan Benjamin was 45 years old.
Hieromartyr John Vostorgov, Archpriest
A famous Moscow priest, one of the leaders of the monarchist movement. He was arrested in 1918 on charges of intending to sell the Moscow diocesan house (!). He was held in the Internal Prison of the Cheka, then in Butyrki. With the beginning of the “Red Terror” he was executed extrajudicially. Publicly shot on September 5, 1918 in Petrovsky Park, together with Bishop Efrem, as well as former Chairman of the State Council Shcheglovitov, former Ministers of Internal Affairs Maklakov and Khvostov and Senator Beletsky. After the execution, the bodies of all those executed (up to 80 people) were robbed.
At the time of his death, Archpriest John Vostorgov was 54 years old.
, layman
The ailing Theodore, who suffered from paralysis of his legs from the age of 16, was revered during his lifetime as an ascetic by the believers of the Tobolsk diocese. Arrested by the NKVD in 1937 as a “religious fanatic” for “preparing for an armed uprising against Soviet power.” He was taken to Tobolsk prison on a stretcher. In Theodore's cell they put him facing the wall and forbade him to talk. They didn’t ask him anything, they didn’t carry him during interrogations, and the investigator didn’t enter the cell. Without trial or investigation, according to the verdict of the “troika”, he was shot in the prison yard.
At the time of execution - 41 years old.
, archimandrite
Famous missionary, monk of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, confessor of the Alexander Nevsky Brotherhood, one of the founders of the illegal Theological and Pastoral School in Petrograd. In 1932, together with other members of the brotherhood, he was accused of counter-revolutionary activities and sentenced to 10 years in prison in Siblag. In 1937, he was shot by the NKVD troika for “anti-Soviet propaganda” (that is, for talking about faith and politics) among prisoners.
At the time of execution - 48 years old.
, laywoman
In the 1920s and 30s, Christians throughout Russia knew about it. For many years, OGPU employees tried to “unravel” the phenomenon of Tatyana Grimblit, and, in general, without success. She devoted her entire adult life to helping prisoners. Carried packages, sent parcels. She often helped complete strangers to her, not knowing whether they were believers or not, and under what article they were convicted. She spent almost everything she earned on this, and encouraged other Christians to do the same.
She was arrested and exiled many times, and together with the prisoners she traveled in a convoy across the whole country. In 1937, while a nurse in a hospital in the city of Konstantinov, she was arrested on false charges of anti-Soviet agitation and “deliberate killing of the sick.”
Shot at the Butovo firing range near Moscow at the age of 34.
, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'
The first Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, who ascended the Patriarchal throne after the restoration of the patriarchate in 1918. In 1918, he anathematized the persecutors of the Church and participants in bloody massacres. In 1922–23 he was kept under arrest. Subsequently, he was under constant pressure from the OGPU and the “gray abbot” Yevgeny Tuchkov. Despite the blackmail, he refused to join the Renovationist schism and collude with the godless authorities.
He died at the age of 60 from heart failure.
, Metropolitan of Krutitsky
He took holy orders in 1920, at the age of 58, and was the closest assistant to His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon in matters of church administration. Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne from 1925 (the death of Patriarch Tikhon) until the false report of his death in 1936. From the end of 1925 he was imprisoned. Despite constant threats to extend his imprisonment, he remained faithful to the canons of the Church and refused to remove himself from the rank of Patriarchal Locum Tenens until the legal Council.
He suffered from scurvy and asthma. After a conversation with Tuchkov in 1931, he was partially paralyzed. The last years of his life he was kept as a “secret prisoner” in solitary confinement in the Verkhneuralsk prison.
In 1937, at the age of 75, by the verdict of the NKVD troika in the Chelyabinsk region, he was shot for “slander of the Soviet system” and accusing the Soviet authorities of persecuting the Church.
, Metropolitan of Yaroslavl
After the death of his wife and newborn son in 1885, he accepted holy orders and monasticism, and from 1889 served as a bishop. One of the candidates for the post of locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, according to the will of Patriarch Tikhon. We tried to persuade the OGPU to cooperate, but to no avail. For resistance to the renovationist schism in 1922-23 he was imprisoned, in 1923-25. - in exile in the Narym region.
He died in Yaroslavl at the age of 74.
, archimandrite
Coming from a peasant family, he took holy orders at the height of persecution of his faith in 1921. He spent a total of 17.5 years in prisons and camps. Even before his official canonization, Archimandrite Gabriel was revered as a saint in many dioceses of the Russian Church.
In 1959, he died in Melekess (now Dmitrovgrad) at the age of 71.
, Metropolitan of Almaty and Kazakhstan
Coming from a poor, large family, he dreamed of becoming a monk since childhood. In 1904 he took monastic vows, and in 1919, at the height of persecution of the faith, he became a bishop. For resistance to renovationism in 1925–27 he was imprisoned. In 1932, he was sentenced to 5 years in concentration camps (according to the investigator, “for popularity”). In 1941, for the same reason, he was exiled to Kazakhstan, in exile he almost died from hunger and disease, and was homeless for a long time. In 1945, he was released early from exile at the request of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), and headed the Kazakhstan diocese.
He died in Almaty at the age of 88. The veneration of Metropolitan Nicholas among the people was enormous. Despite the threat of persecution, 40 thousand people took part in the bishop’s funeral in 1955.
, archpriest
Hereditary rural priest, missionary, unmercenary. In 1918, he supported the anti-Soviet peasant uprising in the Ryazan province and blessed the people “to go to fight the persecutors of the Church of Christ.” Together with Hieromartyr Nicholas, the Church honors the memory of the martyrs Cosmas, Victor (Krasnov), Naum, Philip, John, Paul, Andrei, Paul, Vasily, Alexy, John and the martyr Agathia who suffered with him. All of them were brutally killed by the Red Army on the banks of the Tsna River near Ryazan.
At the time of his death, Father Nikolai was 44 years old.
Saint Kirill (Smirnov), Metropolitan of Kazan and Sviyazhsk
One of the leaders of the Josephite movement, a convinced monarchist and opponent of Bolshevism. He was arrested and exiled many times. In the will of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon was indicated as the first candidate for the post of locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne. In 1926, when a secret gathering of opinions took place among the episcopate on a candidacy for the post of Patriarch, the largest number of votes was given to Metropolitan Kirill.
To Tuchkov’s proposal to lead the Church without waiting for the Council, the bishop replied: “Evgeniy Alexandrovich, you are not a cannon, and I am not a bomb with which you want to blow up the Russian Church from within,” for which he received another three years of exile.
, archpriest
The rector of the Resurrection Cathedral in Ufa, a famous missionary, church historian and public figure, he was accused of “campaigning in favor of Kolchak” and shot by security officers in 1919.
The 62-year-old priest was beaten, spat in his face, and dragged by his beard. He was led to execution in only his underwear, barefoot in the snow.
, metropolitan
An officer of the tsarist army, an outstanding artilleryman, as well as a doctor, composer, artist... He left worldly glory for the sake of serving Christ and took holy orders in obedience to his spiritual father - St. John of Kronstadt.
On December 11, 1937, at the age of 82, he was shot at the Butovo training ground near Moscow. He was taken to prison in an ambulance, and to execution - he was carried out on a stretcher.
, Archbishop of Verei
Outstanding Orthodox theologian, writer, missionary. During the Local Council of 1917–18, then-Archimandrite Hilarion was the only non-bishop who was named in behind-the-scenes conversations among the desirable candidates for the patriarchate. He accepted the episcopate at the height of persecution of the faith - in 1920, and soon became the closest assistant to the holy Patriarch Tikhon.
He spent a total of two three-year terms in the Solovki concentration camp (1923–26 and 1926–29). “He stayed for a repeat course,” as the bishop himself joked... Even in prison, he continued to rejoice, joke and thank the Lord. In 1929, during the next stage, he fell ill with typhus and died.
He was 43 years old.
Martyr Princess Kira Obolenskaya, laywoman
Kira Ivanovna Obolenskaya was a hereditary noblewoman, belonged to the ancient Obolensky family, which traced its ancestry to the legendary Prince Rurik. She studied at the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens and worked as a teacher in a school for the poor. Under Soviet rule, as a representative of “class alien elements”, she was transferred to the position of librarian. She took an active part in the life of the Alexander Nevsky Brotherhood in Petrograd.
In 1930–34 she was imprisoned in concentration camps for counter-revolutionary views (Belbaltlag, Svirlag). Upon release from prison, she lived 101 kilometers from Leningral, in the city of Borovichi. In 1937, she was arrested along with the Borovichi clergy and executed on false charges of creating a “counter-revolutionary organization.”
At the time of the execution, the martyr Kira was 48 years old.
Martyr Catherine of Arskaya, laywoman
Merchant's daughter, born in St. Petersburg. In 1920, she experienced a tragedy: her husband, an officer in the Tsar’s army and head of the Smolny Cathedral, died of cholera, then their five children. Seeking help from the Lord, Ekaterina Andreevna became involved in the life of the Alexander Nevsky Brotherhood at the Feodorovsky Cathedral in Petrograd, and became the spiritual daughter of the Hieromartyr Leo (Egorov).
In 1932, along with other members of the brotherhood (90 people in total), Catherine was also arrested. She received three years in concentration camps for participating in the activities of a “counter-revolutionary organization.” Upon returning from exile, like the martyr Kira Obolenskaya, she settled in the city of Borovichi. In 1937 she was arrested in connection with the Borovichi clergy case. She refused to admit her guilt in “counter-revolutionary activities” even under torture. She was shot on the same day as the martyr Kira Obolenskaya.
She was 62 years old at the time of the shooting.
, layman
Historian, publicist, honorary member of the Moscow Theological Academy. The grandson of a priest, in his youth he tried to create his own community, living according to the teachings of Count Tolstoy. Then he returned to the Church and became an Orthodox missionary. With the Bolsheviks coming to power, Mikhail Alexandrovich joined the Temporary Council of United Parishes of the city of Moscow, which at its very first meeting called on believers to defend churches and protect them from the encroachments of atheists.
Since 1923, he went underground, hid with friends, wrote missionary brochures (“Letters to Friends”). When he was in Moscow, he went to pray at the Vozdvizhensky Church on Vozdvizhenka. On March 22, 1929, not far from the temple, he was arrested. Mikhail Alexandrovich spent almost ten years in prison; he led many of his cellmates to faith.
On January 20, 1938, he was shot in a Vologda prison at the age of 73 for anti-Soviet statements.
, priest
At the time of the revolution, he was a layman, an associate professor in the department of dogmatic theology at the Moscow Theological Academy. In 1919, his academic career came to an end: the Moscow Academy was closed by the Bolsheviks, and the professorship was dispersed. Then Tuberovsky decided to return to his native Ryazan region. In the early 20s, at the height of anti-church persecution, he took holy orders and, together with his father, served in the Church of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary in his native village.
In 1937 he was arrested. Together with Father Alexander, other priests were arrested: Anatoly Pravdolyubov, Nikolai Karasev, Konstantin Bazhanov and Evgeniy Kharkov, as well as laymen. All of them were deliberately falsely accused of “participation in a rebel-terrorist organization and counter-revolutionary activities.” Archpriest Anatoly Pravdolyubov, the 75-year-old rector of the Annunciation Church in the city of Kasimov, was declared the “head of the conspiracy”... According to legend, before execution, the convicts were forced to dig a trench with their own hands and were immediately, facing the ditch, shot.
Father Alexander Tuberovsky was 56 years old at the time of the execution.
Venerable Martyr Augusta (Zashchuk), schema-nun
The founder and first head of the Optina Pustyn Museum, Lidia Vasilievna Zashchuk, was of noble origin. She spoke six foreign languages, had literary talent, and before the revolution she was a famous journalist in St. Petersburg. In 1922, she took monastic vows in Optina Hermitage. After the monastery was closed by the Bolsheviks in 1924, Optina was preserved as a museum. Many inhabitants of the monastery were thus able to remain in their jobs as museum workers.
In 1927–34 Schema-nun Augusta was in prison (she was involved in the same case with Hieromonk Nikon (Belyaev) and other “Optina residents”). From 1934 she lived in the city of Tula, then in the city of Belev, where the last rector of the Optina Hermitage, Hieromonk Issakiy (Bobrikov), settled. She headed a secret women's community in the city of Belev. She was shot in 1938 in connection with a case at 162 km of the Simferopol highway in the Tesnitsky forest near Tula.
At the time of the execution, Schema nun Augusta was 67 years old.
, priest
Hieromartyr Sergius, son of the holy righteous Alexy, presbyter of Moscow, graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. During the First World War, he voluntarily went to the front as an orderly. At the height of persecution in 1919, he took holy orders. After the death of his father in 1923, Hieromartyr Sergius became rector of the Church of St. Nicholas in Klenniki and served in this temple until his arrest in 1929, when he and his parishioners were accused of creating an “anti-Soviet group.”
The holy righteous Alexy himself, already known during his lifetime as an elder in the world, said: “My son will be taller than me.” Father Sergius managed to rally around himself the spiritual children of the late Father Alexy and his own children. Members of the community of Father Sergius carried the memory of their spiritual father through all the persecution. Since 1937, upon leaving the camp, Father Sergius served the liturgy in his home secretly from the authorities.
In the fall of 1941, following a denunciation from neighbors, he was arrested and accused of “working to create underground so-called. “Catacomb churches”, implants secret monasticism similar to the Jesuit orders and on this basis organizes anti-Soviet elements for an active struggle against Soviet power.” On Christmas Eve 1942, Hieromartyr Sergius was shot and buried in an unknown common grave.
At the time of the shooting he was 49 years old.
Have you read the article New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. Read also:
In February 1917, the monarchy fell in Russia and the Provisional Government came to power. But already in October, power in Russia was in the hands of the Bolsheviks. They captured the Kremlin at the very moment when the Local Council was meeting here, electing the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'. Saint Tikhon was elected to the Patriarchal Throne ten days after the Bolsheviks came to power. In 1917, the most tragic period in the history of the Russian Church began. The fight against religion was part of the ideological program of the new Bolshevik government. After seizing power, on October 26, 1917, the Bolsheviks issued the “Decree on Land,” which announced the nationalization of all church and monastic lands “with all their living and dead inventory.” On December 16-18, decrees followed that deprived church marriage of legal force. separating church from state and schools from church. states and schools from the church,” according to which religious education and the teaching of religion in schools were prohibited. Immediately after the victory of the revolution, brutal persecution of the Church, arrests and murders of clergy began. The first victim of revolutionary terror was the St. Petersburg archpriest John Kochurov, killed on October 31, 1917: his death opened the tragic list of new martyrs and confessors of Russia, including the names of tens of thousands of clergy and monastics, hundreds of thousands of laity. On January 25, 1918, Metropolitan of Kiev Vladimir (Epiphany) was killed in Kyiv. Soon the executions and arrests of the clergy became widespread. The executions of clergy were carried out with sophisticated cruelty: they were buried alive in the ground, doused with cold water in the cold until they were completely frozen, boiled in boiling water, crucified, flogged to death, hacked to death with an ax. Many clergy were tortured before death, many were executed along with their families or in front of their wives and children. Churches and monasteries were destroyed and plundered, icons were desecrated and burned. An unbridled campaign against religion was launched in the press. On October 26, 1918, on the anniversary of the Bolsheviks in power, Patriarch Tikhon, in a message to the Council of People's Commissars, spoke about the disasters that befell the country, the people and the Church: “You divided the entire people into hostile camps and plunged them into fratricide of unprecedented cruelty... No one feels safe; everyone lives under constant fear of search, robbery, eviction, arrest, and execution. They seize hundreds of defenseless people, rot for months in prisons, and often execute them without any investigation or trial... They execute bishops, priests, monks and nuns who are innocent of anything.” Soon after this letter, Patriarch Tikhon was placed under house arrest, and the persecution continued with renewed vigor. On February 14, 1919, the People's Commissariat of Justice issued a decree on the organized opening of the relics. Special commissions were appointed, which, in the presence of clergy and laity, publicly desecrated the relics of saints. The goal of the campaign was to discredit the Church and expose “sorcery and quackery.” On April 11, 1919, the relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh were uncovered. The day before, a crowd of pilgrims gathered in front of the gates of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra; prayers to the monk were held all night. On July 29, 1920, the Council of People's Commissars issued a resolution on the liquidation of the relics; a month later, the People's Commissariat of Justice decided to transfer them to museums. Subsequently, many were subsequently transported to the Leningrad Museum of Atheism and Religion, located in the premises of the Kazan Cathedral. The revolution and civil war led to economic devastation. In the summer of 1921, the situation was aggravated by drought. Famine began in the Volga region and some other regions. By May 1922, about 20 million people were already starving, and about a million had died. Entire villages died out, children were left orphans. It was at this moment that the Bolshevik government decided to use it to inflict new blows on the Church. On March 19, 1922, V.I. Lenin composed a secret letter to members of the Politburo, in which he proposed using the famine as a reason for the complete destruction of the church organization in Russia: “All considerations indicate that we will not be able to do this later, because no other moment, other than desperate hunger, will not give us such a mood among the broad peasant masses that would either provide us with the sympathy of this mass, or at least ensure that we neutralize these masses in the sense that victory in the fight against the confiscation of valuables will remain unconditionally and completely with our side... Therefore, I come to the absolute conclusion that we must now give the most decisive and merciless battle to the Black Hundred clergy and suppress their resistance with such cruelty that they will not forget this for several decades.” Trials against clergy and laity began throughout the country. They were accused of resisting the confiscation of church valuables. On April 26, 20 priests and 34 laymen were put on trial in Moscow. At the end of May, Metropolitan Veniamin (Kazan) of Petrograd was arrested: he and 85 other people allegedly incited believers to resist the authorities. The Metropolitan and other defendants were sentenced to death. In addition to persecution by the godless authorities, internal schisms dealt blows to the Church. By 1922, the Renovationist movement had taken shape. Its leaders in this schism advocated the abolition of centuries-old traditions, the introduction of a married episcopate and a number of other innovations. The main thing in the program of the renovationists was the overthrow of the legitimate church hierarchy led by Patriarch Tikhon. For this purpose, they entered into an alliance with the GPU, with the help of which they achieved the removal of the patriarch from power. Between the summer of 1922 and the summer of 1923, power in the Church was actually in the hands of the Renovationists. On May 2, at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, they held a false council, in which 476 delegates, including 62 bishops, participated. The false council decided to deprive Patriarch Tikhon of his rank and monasticism and to cancel the restoration of the patriarchate. Patriarch Tikhon did not recognize the decision of the false council. In 1922, the Patriarch was under house arrest, and at the beginning of 1923 he was transferred to the Lubyanka prison, where he was subjected to regular interrogations. On June 16, he appealed to the Supreme Court with a statement in which he repented of his anti-Soviet activities. On June 25, the Patriarch was released. On December 9, 1924, an assassination attempt was made on Patriarch Tikhon, as a result of which his cell attendant Ya. Polozov, who stood between the Patriarch and the bandits, was killed. After this, the Patriarch's health began to deteriorate. GPU employee Tuchkov, who was responsible for contacts with the Church, demanded that the Patriarch issue a message expressing loyalty to the Soviet government and condemning the emigrant clergy. The text of the message was drawn up, but the Patriarch refused to sign it. On April 7, the Patriarch died without signing the message. The day after his death, the text of the message, allegedly signed by the Patriarch, was published in Izvestia. After the death of Patriarch Tikhon, Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsky was elected locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne. Meanwhile, the persecution of the Church became more and more severe. Peter was soon arrested, and Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) of Nizhny Novgorod took up the duties of Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens. But at the end of 1926 he, too, was arrested and removed from the administration of the Church. By that time, many bishops were languishing in camps and prisons throughout Russia. More than 20 bishops were in the former Solovetsky Monastery, which was turned into the “Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp.” On March 30, 1927, Metropolitan Sergius was released from prison. On May 7, he turned to the NKVD with a petition to legalize church administration. As a condition for such legalization, Sergius had to speak out in support of the Soviet government, condemn the counter-revolution and the emigrant clergy. On July 29, Metropolitan Sergius and the Provisional Patriarchal Synod, formed by him, issued a “Declaration” containing gratitude to the Soviet government for “attention to the spiritual needs of the Orthodox population”, a call “not in words, but in deeds” to prove loyalty to the Soviet government and condemnation of the “anti-Soviet actions” of some foreign bishops. “We want to be Orthodox and at the same time recognize the Soviet Union as our civil Motherland, whose joys and successes are our joys and successes, and whose failures are our failures.” The publication of the “Declaration” did not stop the persecution of the Church. In 1931, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was blown up. All over the country they fought against the ringing of bells, tore down and smashed bells. The destruction of icons and desecration of shrines continued. The arrests and executions of clergy did not stop. The first blow was struck against the opponents of the “Declaration” of Metropolitan Sergius, then against the other bishops. Metropolitan Sergius's struggle to legalize the Church and ease the fate of the arrested bishops was only a relative success. More and more arrests took place in front of the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens, who was powerless to do anything. As a result of unprecedented persecution in the 1930s, the Church in the USSR was almost completely destroyed. By 1939, there were only about 100 operating churches throughout the country, not a single monastery, not a single church educational institution, and only four ruling bishops. Several other bishops served as rectors of churches. A terrible monument to a terrible era is the Butovo training ground, where in the 30s many thousands of people were shot on charges of espionage, anti-Soviet and counter-revolutionary activities. Here, along with people of mature age and very old people, students and even schoolchildren were shot. The youngest of those shot at the Butovo training ground were 15, 16 or 17 years old: several dozen of them were killed here. Hundreds of 18-20 year olds were shot. The boys were brought along with the elders in covered trucks that could accommodate up to 50 people. The convicts were taken to the barracks, their identity was checked using photographs and available documents. The verification and roll call procedure could last several hours. At dawn, the convicts were placed on the edge of a deep ditch; They shot from a pistol point-blank, in the back of the head. The bodies of the dead were thrown into a ditch and covered with earth using a bulldozer. A significant part of those executed were “church members” - bishops, priests, monks, nuns and laymen, accused of belonging to a “church-monarchist organization.” Most of those executed under this article belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church: among the Butovo new martyrs were six bishops, more than three hundred priests, deacons, monks and nuns, psalm-readers and church choir directors. Butovo's death factory worked non-stop. As a rule, at least a hundred people were shot in one day; on other days, 300, 400, 500 or more people were shot. Their bones lie to this day at the Butovo training ground, covered with a thin layer of earth. The position of the Church began to change after the outbreak of World War II. After the Molotov-Ribbentropp signing, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were annexed to the USSR, and in 1940, Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Baltic states. As a result, the number of parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church increased sharply. When the Great Patriotic War began, Metropolitan Sergius was one of the first to address the people on the radio with a call to defend the fatherland. Church, drained of blood With funds collected by the Church, a tank column named after Demetrius Donskoy was created. The patriotic position of the Church did not go unnoticed, and already in 1942 the persecution of the Church weakened significantly. The turning point in the fate of the Church was Stalin’s personal meeting with Metropolitans Sergius (Stragorodsky), Alexy (Simansky) and Nikolai (Yarushevich), which took place on September 4, 1943 on the initiative of the dictator. During the meeting, a number of questions were raised: about the need to convene a Council of Bishops to elect the Patriarch and Synod, about the opening of religious educational institutions, about the publication of a church magazine, about the release of bishops who were in prison and exile. Stalin gave a positive answer to all questions. The Moscow Patriarchate was given a mansion in Chisty Lane, where it is located to this day. Open persecution was temporarily stopped. Many Orthodox parishes resumed their activities in the territories occupied by the Germans, but after the Red Army expelled the Germans from there, these parishes were no longer closed. A new wave of persecution of the Church began in 1958. It was initiated by N. S. Khrushchev, the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, promised to build communism in twenty years, and in 1980 to show the “last priest” on TV. Mass closures of churches and monasteries resumed, and anti-religious propaganda was significantly intensified. The USSR set a course for the bloodless destruction of the Church. The authorities sought to exert powerful ideological pressure on the Church to destroy it from within and discredit it in the eyes of the people. State security agencies suggested that priests renounce God and embark on the path of promoting “scientific atheism.” For this ignoble mission, they usually looked for those clergy who were either banned, had canonical violations, or were “on the hook” from the authorities and were afraid of reprisals. On December 5, 1959, the Pravda newspaper published an article in which the former archpriest and professor of the Leningrad Theological Academy Alexander Osipov renounced God and the Church. This renunciation seemed sudden and unexpected, but in fact Osipov had been a sex worker for many years and wrote denunciations to the KGB against his fellow clergymen. His abdication was carefully and long prepared by state security officers. Osipov became an exposer of “religious prejudices.” He died painfully and for a long time, but even on his deathbed he never tired of declaring his atheism: “I’m not going to beg favors from the “gods.” During the Khrushchev years, Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad and Novgorod played an important role in preserving the Church. Having become a monk at the age of 18, at the age of 33 he headed one of the largest dioceses - Leningrad. As a permanent member of the Synod and chairman of the Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Nikodim, under the elderly Patriarch Alexy I, largely determined the internal and external policy of the Church. In the early 60s, a change of generations took place in the episcopate: many bishops of the old order were leaving for another world, and it was necessary to look for a replacement for them, and the authorities prevented the ordination of young, educated clergy to the episcopate. Metropolitan Nikodim managed to reverse this situation and obtain permission, citing the fact that they are necessary for the international, peacemaking and ecumenical activities of the Church. In order to prevent the closure of the Leningrad Theological Academy, the Metropolitan created a faculty of foreign students in it, and to prevent abuse of clergy during the Easter procession (which was common), he began to invite foreign delegations to Easter services. The Metropolitan saw the expansion of international and ecumenical contacts as one of the means to protect the Church from persecution by the atheistic authorities. At the same time, in words, the Metropolitan was extremely loyal to the authorities and in his numerous interviews with foreign media denied the persecution of the Church: this was the payment for the opportunity to work on the gradual rejuvenation of the church clergy. After Khrushchev’s resignation and L.I. Brezhnev coming to power in 1967, the position of the Church changed little. Until the end of the 1980s, the Church remained a social outcast: it was impossible to openly profess Christianity and at the same time occupy any significant position in society. The number of churches, clergy, students of theological schools and inhabitants of monasteries was strictly regulated, and missionary, educational and charitable activities were prohibited. The church was still under strict control. Changes in the life of the Russian Orthodox Church began in 1985 with the coming to power in the USSR of M.S. Gorbachev and the beginning of the policy of “glasnost” and “perestroika”. For the first time after many decades, the Church began to emerge from forced isolation; its leaders began to appear on public platforms. In 1988, the celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus' took place. The event, originally conceived as a narrowly church event, resulted in a nationwide celebration. It became obvious that the Orthodox Church has proven its viability, it is not broken by persecution, and has high authority in the eyes of the people. With this anniversary, the second mass Baptism of Rus' began. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, millions of people throughout the former Soviet Union came to the Orthodox faith. Dozens and hundreds of people were baptized every day in large city churches. Over the next 20 years in Russia, the number of parishes increased fivefold, and the number of monasteries increased more than forty times. The unprecedented quantitative growth of the Russian Orthodox Church was accompanied by fundamental changes in its sociopolitical position of the Orthodox Church. After seventy years of persecution, the Church again became an integral part of society, recognized as a spiritual and moral force. For the first time after many centuries, the Church acquired the right to independently, without interference from secular authorities, determine its place in society and build its relations with the state. At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, the Russian Church was reborn in all its greatness. Today the Church has ample opportunities for educational, missionary, social, charitable, and publishing activities. The revival of church life was the fruit of the selfless labor of millions of people. However, it would not have happened if it had not been for those numerous martyrs and confessors of the faith who in the twentieth century preferred death to renunciation of Christ and who now, standing before the throne of God, pray for their people and for their Church.
On January 9, 1920, Archbishop Tikhon of Voronezh was killed in Voronezh on the day of the mass execution of clergy. It is worth clarifying that the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church began even before the Bolsheviks came to power. The liberals from the Provisional Government anticipated the Bolsheviks in their attitude towards religion and the Church, showing themselves to be enemies of Russian Orthodoxy. If in 1914 there were 54,174 Orthodox churches and 1,025 monasteries in the Russian Empire, then in 1987 only 6,893 churches and 15 monasteries remained in the USSR. In 1917-20 alone, more than 4.5 thousand priests were shot. Today is a story about clergy who gave their lives for their faith.
Archpriest John Kochurov
Ioann Kochurov (in the world Ivan Aleksandrovich Kochurov) was born on July 13, 1871 in the Ryazan province into a large family of a rural priest. He graduated from the Dankov Theological School, the Ryazan Theological Seminary, and the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, after which, in August 1895, he was ordained a priest and sent to missionary service in the Aleutian and Alaskan diocese. This was his long-time desire. He served in the USA until 1907, being the rector of St. Vladimir's Church in Chicago.
Returning to Russia, John Kochurov became a supernumerary priest of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Narva, a priest of the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in Sillamäe, and at the same time was a teacher of the law at the Narva women's and men's gymnasiums. Since November 1916, Archpriest John Kochurov has been the second priest in the Catherine Cathedral of Tsarskoye Selo.
At the end of September 1917, Tsarskoye Selo became the center of confrontation between Cossack troops supporting the overthrown head of the Provisional Government A. Kerensky and the Bolshevik Red Guard. October 30, 1917 Fr. John took part in the procession with special prayers for an end to the internecine warfare and called on the people to remain calm. This happened during the shelling of Tsarskoe Selo. The next day, the Bolsheviks entered Tsarskoe Selo and arrests of priests began. Father John tried to protest, but he was beaten, taken to the Tsarskoye Selo airfield and shot in front of his son, a high school student. The parishioners buried Father John in a tomb under St. Catherine's Cathedral, which was blown up in 1939.
It is worth saying that the murder of Archpriest Ioann Kochurov was one of the first on the mournful list of murdered church leaders. After this, arrests and murders followed almost non-stop.
Archbishop Tikhon IV of Voronezh
Archbishop Tikhon IV of Voronezh (in the world Nikanorov Vasily Varsonofievich) was born on January 30, 1855 in the Novgorod province into the family of a psalm-reader. He received an excellent theological education, graduating from the Kirillov Theological School, the Novgorod Theological Seminary and the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. At the age of 29, he became a monk at the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery with the name Tikhon, and was ordained a hieromonk. After another 4 years, he was granted the abbess. In December 1890, Tikhon was elevated to the rank of archimandrite and became rector of the Novgorod Anthony Monastery, and in May 1913 he was awarded the rank of archbishop and transferred to Voronezh. Contemporaries spoke of him as “a kind man whose sermons were simple and accessible.”
His Grace Tikhon had to meet for the last time in the history of the city of Voronezh with Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and her daughters Olga and Tatiana. The royalty then visited the Mitrofan Annunciation Monastery, venerated the relics of St. Mitrofan and toured hospitals for wounded soldiers.
Since the beginning of the First World War, Archbishop Tikhon led active public and church-charitable activities. He performed private and public services at the farewell of conscripts, and held funeral services for those killed on the battlefield. Boards of trustees were opened in all Voronezh churches, providing moral and material assistance to those in need, and gifts were collected and sent to the army. In October 1914, Archbishop Tikhon blessed the opening of an infirmary-hospital for the wounded with 100 beds in the Mitrofanovsky Monastery, as well as the opening of the Voronezh diocesan committee for the placement of refugees.
Archbishop Tikhon became one of the first clergy who had to face a negative attitude towards the Church of the new government. He was arrested for the first time and, accompanied by soldiers, was sent to Petrograd on June 8, 1917. On January 9, 1920, the day of the mass execution of clergy in Voronezh, Archbishop Tikhon was hanged on the Royal Doors of the Annunciation Cathedral. The highly revered martyr was buried in the crypt of the Annunciation Cathedral. In 1956, when the Mitrofanovsky Monastery and crypt were destroyed, Tikhon’s remains were reburied at the Kominternovsky cemetery in Voronezh, and in 1993 his remains were transferred to the necropolis of the Alekseevsky Akatov Monastery. In August 2000, Archbishop Tikhon of the Russian Orthodox Church was glorified as a martyr.
Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia Vladimir Bogoyavlensky (in the world Vasily Nikiforovich Bogoyavlensky) was born on January 1, 1848 in the Tambov province in the family of a rural priest. He received his spiritual education first at the theological school and seminary in Tambov, and then at the Kyiv Theological Academy. After graduating from the academy, Vladimir returned to Tambov, where he first taught at the seminary, and after getting married, he was ordained and became a parish priest. But his family happiness was short-lived. A few years later, Father Vasily’s only child and his wife died. Having experienced such enormous grief, the young priest takes monastic vows with the name of Vladimir in one of the Tambov monasteries.
During his lifetime, Hieromartyr Vladimir was called the “All-Russian Metropolitan,” since he was the only hierarch who consistently occupied all the main metropolitan sees of the Russian Orthodox Church - Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kyiv.
In January 1918, the All-Ukrainian Church Council raised the question of autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Metropolitan Vladimir defended the unity of the Russian Church. But the leader of the schismatic party, Archbishop Alexy, who arbitrarily settled in the Lavra next to Metropolitan Vladimir, in every possible way incited the monks of the Lavra against the holy archimandrite.
On the afternoon of January 25, 1918, the Red Guards burst into the Metropolitan’s chambers and conducted a search. The monks began to complain that they wanted to establish order in the monastery, like the Reds - with councils and committees, but the Metropolitan did not allow it. Already in the evening, 5 armed soldiers came to the metropolitan in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Vladimir was taken out of the Lavra through the All Saints Gate and brutally killed between the ramparts of the Old Pechersk Fortress, not far from Nikolskaya Street.
However, there is an opinion that the Bolsheviks did not take any part in this atrocity, but the metropolitan was killed by bandits invited by some monks of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, who succumbed to Bolshevik propaganda and slandered the archpastor, allegedly “robbed” the Lavra, which receives large incomes from pilgrims.
On April 4, 1992, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Metropolitan Vladimir (Epiphany) as a holy martyr. His relics are located in the Far Caves of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, in the cave church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Arimandrid Varlaam
Arimandrid Varlaam (in the world Konoplev Vasily Efimovich) was born on April 18, 1858. The son of mining peasants. His family belonged to the Old Believers of the priestless persuasion. Varlaam’s path to Orthodoxy was not easy. “Lord, show me a miracle, resolve my doubts,” he asked in prayers, and Father Stefan Lukanin appeared in his life, who with meekness and love explained to Vasily his perplexities, and his heart was pacified. October 17, 1893 in the Perm Cathedral he received confirmation. Soon 19 of his relatives also joined the Church.
On November 6, 1893, he settled on Belaya Gora and from that time on, those wishing to lead a monastic life began to flock to him. This place was as secluded as . He also became the first abbot of the Belogorsk St. Nicholas Monastery.
In October 1918, the Bolsheviks plundered the Belogorsky St. Nicholas Monastery. Archimandrite Varlaam was drowned in a pillowcase made of rough linen in the Kama River. The entire monastery complex was subjected to barbaric destruction: the throne was desecrated, shrines, monastic workshops and the library were plundered. Some monks were shot, and some were thrown into a pit and covered with sewage. Archimandrite Varlaam is buried in the cemetery in Perm.
Bishop Feofan (in the world Ilminsky Sergei Petrovich) was born on September 26, 1867 in the Saratov province into the family of a church reader. He was left without a father early. He was raised by his mother, a deeply religious person, and his uncle, the rural archpriest Dimitri. Sergei graduated from the Kazan Theological Academy and taught at the Saratov Diocesan Women's School. Only at the age of 32 was he ordained to the priesthood. Contemporaries recalled that his pastoral appeal was always direct and uncompromising. Regarding the murder of Stolypin in Kyiv, he said this: “ Again Herodias is raging, again the revolutionary, Jewish-Masonic hydra demands the head of the Sovereign’s servants!»
In September 1915, Father Feofan was elevated to the rank of archimandrite of the Solikamsk Holy Trinity Monastery. When in 1918 the new government became interested in the land, Bishop Feofan declared that he was no longer afraid of the Last Judgment and would not disclose information about the monastic holdings. Under the leadership of the bishop, crowded religious processions were organized as protests against the persecution of the church and the robberies of monasteries.
In June 1918, Bishop Theophan took control of the Perm diocese after the arrest and execution of the holy martyr Archbishop Andronik of Perm, but was soon arrested himself. On December 11, 1918, in thirty-degree frost, Bishop Feofan was repeatedly immersed in the ice hole of the Kama River. His body was covered with ice, but he was still alive. Then the executioners simply drowned him.
And further…
In 2013, the PSTGU publishing house released the book-album “Those who suffered for the faith and the Church of Christ. 1917–1937,” and on May 15, a meeting was held at the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church dedicated to the study and preservation of the memory of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, organized by the Orthodox St. Tikhon’s Humanitarian University.
We invite everyone who is interested in this topic to find out.
Father Nikolai Donenko is the author of many historical studies covering the years of communist persecution of faith. In his books, he introduces readers to the tragic fates of the clergy of the last century. In addition, the priest was a member of the UOC commission for canonization for a long time. He spoke about how saints are canonized today, how work is being done to study the lives of the new martyrs, and much more.
Father Nikolai, why did the persecution of the 20s and 30s become the theme for your life’s work?
It is obvious to me that these years are a great era in which God revealed giants of spirit and geniuses of faith. This stunning vision fascinates, transforms and convinces us to engage with this period and, first of all, with human destinies. Without a doubt, many people suffered during this tragic time (as well as throughout the world, since the 20th century was cruel in general).But we are not interested in those who suffered for their political beliefs, and not in those who suffered for their sins by committing criminal crimes, and not even in those who suffered innocently and did not understand what and why was happening to them. And I was mainly interested in people who lived for Christ, suffered and died for Him. That is, those who had a Christian rational goal setting in their life and even death. It was those people who were able to remain faithful to Christ, His Church, despite everyday expediencies, the dictatorship of the political moment, the despotism of common sense, which led the world to disaster, remained themselves, that is, standing before God.
Please tell us what the canonization procedure is.
A saint is already de facto holy with God, and we, living on earth, through faith and experience try to identify in a brother or sister a saint, a person who has pleased God. For this purpose, with the blessing of the hierarchy, a commission for canonization of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate was created. This commission included experienced bishops and priests who receive material coming from different dioceses. And each diocese, as is known, had saints, righteous people, ascetics of piety and martyrs who were preserved in the memory of the church people. And this remembrance is nothing more than the beginning of church tradition: the preservation of heavenly experience in the life of the Orthodox people. Information about martyrs, devotees of piety, and confessors, after being considered by the diocesan commission, was proposed for consideration by the synodal commission for the possible canonization of one or another clergyman or layman who suffered for the sake of Christ. And only after a comprehensive study of the material was a final decision made and proposed for approval by the Holy Synod. After this, the diocesan bishop could set a date for the proposed glorification of a particular saint. For this purpose, a tomos, a short life, a troparion, a kontakion and a prayer to the saint are compiled. As a rule, on the day of glorification during the Divine Liturgy, the archpastor, in concelebration with his brothers and clergy, after the Small Entrance, remembers the martyr for the last time about his repose, after which his life and the tomos about the decision to canonize Christ’s witness are read out. Then the troparion and kontakion are sung to the saint in front of his newly painted icon, and thus the church people are notified that they have a new intercessor before God.
Why are not all clergy who died for their faith canonized?
The basis for understanding this issue is the word of the Gospel: He who endures to the end will be saved(Matt. 10:22). Definitely, a person must endure suffering, reproach, persecution and death itself until the end. And then he is crowned with Christ with the crown of a martyr. On the other hand, for worldly opponents it is necessary to point out that Christ does not require any results from your life and activity; man, as a weak being, is required to stand in the truth. Standing in truth. Standing at any cost, without conformity with any political, everyday or private motives.
The question arises: why are some clergy, bishops, monastics, known in church society as remarkable figures, theologians and preachers, who through their labors provided a service to the Church and were ultimately shot during the hard years, still not canonized? The answer is simple. On the one hand, research work is still ongoing. And the requirements of the canonization commission are becoming stricter and more specific. At a minimum, all materials directly or indirectly related to a particular person should be studied. On the other hand, there are those personalities who, despite their outstanding talent, extraordinary personality and rich heritage, when faced face to face with the bone-crushing machine of state atheism, broke down. They did not endure everything to the end, they slandered themselves and others. On the basis of which they were shot. Such a person, of course, cannot be canonized.
We understand the horror of suffering, which is too much for an ordinary person to bear. And in no case do we condemn the one who broke down and went towards the investigation, which had a simple goal: to destroy this person as a representative of the Orthodox clergy. Obviously, his innocently shed blood will wash away his personal sins, but this is not yet holiness. In the Church we distinguish between those who were pardoned and saved - and those who were righteous and acquired holiness. In a word, those in whom Christ lived and acted, which is why this man remained invincible to the forces of hell and the militant atheism of the era of God-fighting.
And who are these newly glorified saints?
Completely different people - from high-ranking hierarchs to ordinary laymen, ordinary people for whom life was Christ, and death was gain(Phil. 1:21). These people are of different occupations, social status, education, but they turn out to be faithful to Christ to the end. The quiet voice of the Savior: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.(Matthew 11:28) - turned out to be extremely relevant for them, overshadowing all the ideological noise of official atheistic propaganda. The still small voice of Christ, His gospel call is known and is now addressed to us. The words of the Gospel, spoken once and for all centuries, remain the cornerstone for us, people of the 21st century, for Whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy Angels(Mark 8:38).
Must there be miracles?
The uniqueness of martyrdom for Christ is absolute. This is a universal phenomenon that has absolute value and meaning. If a person testifies to his loyalty to Christ with his blood and life, then no more certification is required - he is holy! For the sake of Christ, he washed away his sins with blood, and therefore is clean. If the canonization of a saint or a blessed person, or any other person, takes place, then a careful study of the integrity of his earthly path is required. Popular veneration and miracles are also necessary. Having ascertained the certainty and objectivity of the above conditions, the commission makes a decision with a clear conscience.
Why is Mother Alipia (Avdeeva) not canonized, although miracles are known and there is veneration?
I knew Mother Alypia personally and visited her several times. The height of her exploits and the uniqueness of her spiritual gifts are obvious to me. But, as a rule, in order to avoid human and excessive emotional and psychological attachments, the Church is in no hurry to make a final decision. And only after the passage of time, when human preferences and predilections recede into the past and reveal the undoubted truth, the Church makes a final, genuine, undoubted decision, obvious to all the faithful.
Why is it valuable for our contemporaries to address the topic of the life and death of the new martyrs?
What is amazing for us, people of the 21st century, is that the martyrs of the 20th century clearly saw that there was something more valuable than their lives. There is some absolute meaning that is beyond your private egoism. And this fact, radiating God’s love, was so convincing that it allowed him to sacrifice not only his own, but also himself. To endure not only need, imprisonment, persecution, but also to accept death itself as a gift and acquisition that unites us with Christ. What is noteworthy is that in their life, which has already become a life, there is nothing that is now called gloss. On the contrary, there is a tart taste of life that helps us realize that everything that is not eternal dies even before it is born.