New Martyrs of Russia

Today the church is vested in red in honor and memory of the martyrs, as today we commemorate the holy new martyrs of Russia – those millions of Christian souls persecuted, tortured, and killed for their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, those decades of Godless persecution within Russia took place within most of our lifetimes. Indeed, a number of you standing here today lived through the intimidations and persecutions of atheistic communism, whether in Russia or Romania or elsewhere.

It is critically important to keep before us the names and the memories of those who were martyred for their faith – first of all to glorify their struggles, but also to inspire and encourage ourselves, and to equip ourselves to recognize the progression of a once Christian society which slips into a worldview which can no longer tolerate Christianity.

I remember a little over 40 years ago helping to do some typesetting on a book being compiled by the St Herman Brotherhood entitled ‘Russia’s Catacomb Saints’. The book recounted the atmosphere of apostasy which was occurring in Russia in the early decades of the 20th century and detailed the lives and martyrdom of so many noble bishops, priests, and pious souls – those martyrs whom we commemorate today. One of the things that struck me most profoundly when that book was finally published was the dedication page which read: ‘This book is dedicated to the Christian martyrs… today in Russia, tomorrow in America.’

That certainly struck an ominous tone… but at the time it seemed somewhat far-fetched and pessimistic. And yet, in the decades that have unfolded since that time, our country has progressively fallen along many of the same paths that make a nation easy prey for immorality, relativism, and falsehood – which we see in abundance today. And as those voices which called out from the Gulag have warned us – these are the precursors of potential persecution and tyranny. We have been warned and we have been shown the terrible outcomes of such a path. May God preserve us!

While we are advised to heed the signs of apostasy in our society, let us focus this morning on what lessons the new martyrs hold for us as individuals, as Christians trying to preserve and prosper our faith in the face of difficult times. Among the many virtues of the martyrs, there are three which I would like to emphasize… clarity, conviction, and courage.

Amid all the growing uncertainties and confusion and contradictions swirling in the world around them, the Christian martyrs retained a clarity of vision and understanding. While the world was screaming ‘up is down’ and ‘left is right’ and ‘evil is good’ and ‘good is evil’… the martyrs maintained a calm and clear grounding in the truths handed down to them for generations. Truths which stood the test of time, truths which transcend human opinion, truths which proved themselves in producing sanctity… truths which have been revealed by the Author and Embodiment of Truth, Christ our Lord. It was this Truth which provided their clarity.

Being grounded and inspired by this clarity, the martyrs secured themselves to it by their conviction and commitment. This was not a closemindedness wherein they insulated themselves from view opposed to their own, but a fidelity to that which is and has proven itself to be True -which gives discernment therefore to recognize what is right and what is wrong.

Having such clarity and conviction, they then stood firm and shined forth in their courage to remain faithful to Christ. This courage was born not out of allegiance to an idea, but out of loyalty to a relationship to the Person of Truth. It is something living and life-giving.

I will never forget the blessing I had in meeting one of the living martyrs of the Russian Church. It was around 1987 when I met Alexander Ogorodnikov, who had been imprisoned in the Soviet Union for his religious beliefs and placed in a ‘mental ward’ for the insane. He had just been released from prison and brought out of the Soviet Gulag through the diligent efforts of many in the West who applied political pressure to set him free. Alexander was at a friend’s house at Stanford and about half a dozen of us gathered to greet him and congratulate him on his release and to hear a word from him about his experiences.

Though he was exhausted from his recent long travel to the USA and was suffering from a bit of a fever, he sat wrapped in a blanket and spoke with us for several hours. I remember him describing how he was handcuffed and brought before his interrogators. When pressure to admit that his faith in Christ was a mental illness, he would not do so, and the interrogators threw him upon the floor and stepped on the handcuffs to break his wrists. I remember him telling us how precious the image of the cross was for him and his fellow prisoners. Of course, their cross necklaces were immediately confiscated, but Alexander told us how he managed to create a small cross of cloth from some piece of clothing or a blanket that he had. He adored this little cross and kept it as a great treasure and beacon of light within that darkness. Soon enough, someone told the guards about Alexander’s cross and so, before they could find it and take it away, he placed it in his mouth and he swallowed it. The guards tore his cell apart and beat him to within an inch of his life, but they could not find the cross. Alexander then told us with gratitude that they placed him in solitary confinement for the next week… a perfect cover for him to sift through his excrement over the next few days to recover his treasured cross.

These are just a few stories of just one man who lived to tell the tale of his clarity and conviction and courage in the face of persecution. We know the stories of many more who showed that same strength and who ended their earthly lives at the hand of those who hated them and all that they stood for.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ… at every Liturgy we pray for the peace of the whole world and the good estate of the holy churches of God. Let us indeed pray that God would preserve us and continue to grant us freedom – and that we would use that freedom to treasure our faith and to wisely establish ourselves to grow in clarity and conviction and in courage… clinging with faith and hope and love to the words of the holy Apostle we heard this morning:

‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: For Your sake we are killed all the day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet in all things we are more than conquerors, through Him Who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

O holy martyrs, pray to God for us! Amen!