Traditional medicine

About the feat of faith of the new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church. Ilyina Z

Dear conference participants! I am glad to warmly welcome all of you gathered in this hall of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The 20th century was especially difficult and tragic for our Motherland, the entire people, and the Russian Orthodox Church. Russia has lost millions of its sons and daughters. Among those villainously killed and tortured during the years of persecution were an innumerable number of Orthodox Christians - laymen and monks, bishops and priests, clergy, scientists, intelligentsia, ordinary workers and peasants, whose only guilt was their firm faith in God. These were ordinary people, the same as we are, but they were distinguished by a special spirituality, kindness, responsiveness, cordiality, the breadth of the Russian soul, imbued with a thousand years of Christian history and culture, faith in God and loyalty to one's religious beliefs. They preferred to die than to live without God, without Christ. The new martyrs and confessors by their feat revealed the glory of God, the bearers of which were the martyrs and confessors throughout all centuries, starting from the first century of the existence of the Church. The feat of these saints remains in the memory of the Church, which is reborn thanks to their prayers. The rule of the Bolshevik Party in Russia, especially its first two decades, was marked by persecution of the Church on an unprecedented scale. The Bolshevik government not only wanted to build a new society according to new political principles, it did not tolerate any religion other than its belief in the “world revolution.” There was only one force that the Russian Orthodox Church could oppose to the insane malice of the persecutors. This is the power of faith and the holiness that flows from it. Faced with this great force, with this spiritual resistance, militant Soviet atheism, against its will, was forced to retreat. The new martyrs and confessors of Russia were not afraid to live according to the Gospel even in the darkest years of Lenin’s Bolshevik tyranny, to live as their Christian conscience told them, and were ready to die for it. The Lord accepted this great sacrifice and, by His Providence, directed the course of history during the Second World War in such a way that the Soviet leadership was forced to abandon plans for the brutal eradication of religion in the USSR. But how would subsequent periods Soviet history were not called (“thaw”, “stagnation”) during the years of Soviet power (1940-1980s of the twentieth century), believers were subjected to repression for their religious views and loyalty to Christ. In the past century, the Church has encountered a colossal phenomenon, something it has never encountered before—the massive feat of martyrdom. The appearance of an incredible number of saints. Over the past years, the Russian Orthodox Church has collected numerous testimonies about Christians who suffered persecution for the faith of Christ in the 20th century. Extensive material has been accumulated that allows us to objectively assess the situation of that period. However, for short time It is very difficult to comprehend such a huge amount of information. Careful and lengthy work will be required. Unfortunately, we know too little about the specific exploits of the new martyrs, their spiritual heritage. Listing their names, it is currently very difficult for us to say something about their life and righteous death. In this regard, there is a great need for accessible narrative literature. We now need not only historical research, but also fiction books, historical stories, poems, etc. Today the Russian Orthodox Church is trying to popularize and make widely known the feat of the Russian new martyrs. In order to implement the Determination of the Council of Bishops on February 2-4, 2011 “On measures to preserve the memory of the new martyrs, confessors and all innocent atheists during the years of persecution of those who suffered” at the last meeting Holy Synod in December 2012, a decision was made to create the Church and Public Council for perpetuating the memory of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia, chaired by His Holiness Patriarch. On November 6, 2012, as part of the exhibition-forum “Orthodox Rus'”, the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Foundation for the Preservation of Spiritual and Moral Culture “Pokrov” held a presentation of a comprehensive targeted program for disseminating the veneration of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia “Lights of Russia of the 20th century”. This program is being implemented with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill and is aimed at creating information conditions and opportunities for church-wide veneration and glorification of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia, understanding and assimilating the greatness of their spiritual feat. In order for the memory of the new martyrs to be strengthened in our society as an example of the steadfastness of faith, it is necessary to intensify our work. Church and social events (conferences, forums, conventions) should be held; study the history of the feat of the new martyrs and confessors in educational institutions, both theological (seminaries, schools) and general education (gymnasiums, schools); create documentary and feature films, lead television programs, publish literature dedicated to the feat of the new martyrs and confessors; to create diocesan centers for promoting the study of the feat of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia at the diocesan and parish level, which would collect relevant material, systematize it and study it. To summarize, we can say that the strength and unity of any people, its ability to respond to the challenges thrown at it, are determined, first of all, by its spiritual strength. The pinnacle of spiritual growth is holiness. The holy ascetics have united, are uniting and will unite the people of Russia. It is, of course, possible to gather people under the banner of false ideas, imbued with hatred. But such a human unification will not last, as we see vivid historical examples of. The feat of the new martyrs has eternal significance. The power of holiness demonstrated by them defeated the malice of the God-fighting Bolsheviks. The veneration of the new martyrs and confessors, before our eyes, united the Russian Church, outwardly, through the efforts of the same atheists, which was divided at the end of the 1920s. But without a return to true values, the ideal of which is holiness, our society will remain doomed. If the people of our country have a future, then only in following the Truth, the fidelity of which was demonstrated by our saints, the closest of whom to us are the new martyrs and confessors of Russia, led by the Royal Passion-Bearers. Daily online media “Orthodoxy and Peace”

In the history of Russia, the past twentieth century was marked by the brutal persecution of the Orthodox Church by the Soviet regime. Many clergy and ordinary believers were persecuted to the point of death by the atheist state for their religious beliefs. The feat of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia is the clearest example fidelity to Christ and His Church. Despite this, their example still requires full reflection. A contribution to this process is an article by Metropolitan Clement of Kaluga and Borovsk.

Once our Lord Jesus Christ, turning to His disciples, said: “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit...” (Matthew 28:19). The Church, heeding the call of the Savior, accomplishes its apostolic ministry for two thousand years, but not always and everywhere people accepted the doctrine of true God. For a society stricken by passions and vices, the Beatitudes and the teaching of love for God and neighbor became a serious irritant and caused indignation and rage, since they exposed the unrighteous way of life in which this society lived. When we are asked: “Who are the martyrs?”, we give a clear answer: “These are those who, for the sake of faith in Christ, accepted suffering and even death.” As an example, we cite the first martyr Archdeacon Stephen, the Bethlehem babies, those who in the first centuries of our era, at the dawn of Christianity, suffered for Christ and, of course, the new martyrs and confessors of Russia in the 20th century. Almost a thousand years after the Baptism of Rus' with “water” at Prince Equal to the Apostles Vladimir, our Fatherland was re-baptized with “blood”. What significance does their feat have for us today? Yes, there are almost two thousand more saints in our Church, but is that only it? To answer this question, it is necessary to better understand what martyrdom is.

Undoubtedly, martyrdom has always been recognized by the Church special kind holiness. Both in ancient times and in modern times, not everyone was able to testify “even to death” about their faith in God. The history of the Church has preserved a lot of evidence that even among the clergy there were individuals who, out of fear of death, and sometimes simply imprisonment, renounced Christ. There is also authentic evidence that from the very first centuries of Christianity, believers treated the remains of martyrs and their burial places with special reverence. Often in such places chapels and temples were erected, where the bloodless Sacrifice was offered, and the feat of the warrior of Christ buried here was glorified. Gradually this became a tradition and in 787 at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (II Nicaea) it was accepted as a generally binding rule that the temple must be consecrated on the relics of the martyr. One of the first teachers of the Church, Tertullian, wrote this: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity.” This is wonderful and amazing precise definition leads us to the conclusion that true Church Christ is based on the blood of the martyrs, which is figuratively reflected in the 7th rule of the VII Ecumenical Council. Therefore, when we remember the feat of the Russian new martyrs, we must remember that it was they who were the fruitful seed thanks to which the Russian Orthodox Church lives and flourishes today.

Speaking about confessing the Name of Christ, one cannot ignore one interesting question: Were the new martyrs forced to renounce Christ, unlike the martyrs of the first centuries? Indeed, if we turn to the history of those years, we can find that no one demanded a direct renunciation of Christ on pain of death. Isolated exceptional cases can only confirm this. Why then did they suffer and were canonized as saints? Looking ahead a little, we note that the feat of the new Russian martyrs differed from the feat of the first martyrs.

In January 1918, the Soviet government proclaimed “freedom of conscience,” which formally indicated a loyal attitude to religion. The same position was officially voiced in the international community: the Soviet government is fighting not only against counter-revolution, but not against religion. It was under this pretext that the fight against the Russian Orthodox Church was carried out, and in the 30s, millions of people were arrested, detained or shot under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, which read: “Any action aimed at overthrowing or undermining is recognized as counter-revolutionary.” or the weakening of the power of the Workers' and Peasants' Councils... also such an action, which, while not directly aimed at achieving the above goals, nevertheless, known to the one who committed it, contains an attempt on the main political or economic gains of the proletarian revolution.” The best result of prosecution under this article for the convicted person and all members of his family was “one hundred and first kilometer”, and the worst was death, since the death penalty was execution. In those years, the latter option was many times superior to the first. In this regard, some researchers believe that all those believers who were subject to criminal prosecution in the USSR suffered not for their religious beliefs, but for anti-Soviet Political Views. Let's see if this is actually true.

It is no secret that believers in those years did not feel sympathy for the Soviet government, since it took an atheistic, godless position. But being ill-disposed is one thing, and counter-revolutionary activity is another thing entirely.

Here are just some facts. At this time, the expression of Karl Marx became popular - “Religion is the opium of the people,” borrowed by him from the Anglican priest Charles Kingsley. It finds a second life thanks to a newspaper article by V.I. Lenin, an excerpt from which we present here:

“Religion is the opium of the people,” is the saying of Marx There is cornerstone the entire worldview of Marxism on the issue of religion. All modern religions Marxism always views churches and all kinds of religious organizations as organs of bourgeois reaction, serving to defend the exploitation and stupefaction of the working class... One must be able to fight religion... This struggle must be put in connection with the concrete practice of the class movement aimed at eliminating the social roots of religion... We must fight religion. This is the ABC of all materialism and, therefore, Marxism.”

It is noteworthy that this article was first published back in 1909, when there was no sign of Soviet power, but the fight against the Church had already been proclaimed. Expressions such as: “Religion is the opium of the people”, “Through godlessness - to communism”, “Religion is poison”, “The fight against religion is the fight for socialism”, etc., became the official slogans of the Soviet government. They are hung on banners in public places, educational and government institutions to incite hostility towards the Church among the population. On February 9, 1918, the first Soviet satirical magazine, “The Red Devil,” was published, on the pages of which it was caricatured how the devil kicks, impales, kills, etc. clergy and religious citizens.

One of distinctive features The suffering path of the new martyrs was often accompanied by a complete information void that accompanied their feat. When a person was taken away in the middle of the night by a “black funnel,” no one knew where he was taken, what would happen to him, or whether he was even alive. “Both old and young” understood this in those years, so no one even hoped that about him tragic fate will anyone ever find out. Apparently for this reason, in those years it was customary among believers to ask each other for forgiveness before going to bed: “Forgive me, for Christ’s sake!”, because every night could be the last.

In the first centuries everything was different. Society by its nature was religious and the persecution that was carried out against Christians, unlike the Soviet authorities, pursued a different goal - not to destroy people’s faith in God, but to change it to the “correct” one. The trial of a martyr was, as a rule, public. He was tortured, seduced, exhorted, thereby trying to achieve one single goal - so that the martyr would renounce Christ and convert to another faith: paganism, Islam, etc. If the goal was achieved, then all persecution by the authorities would cease. “A fallen away” or “fallen away”, and this is exactly what a person who renounced his faith was considered to be, was accepted by society, but rejected by the Church. Often, especially when persecution ceased, many of those who fell away, having repented of their cowardice and renunciation of Christ, were accepted into the bosom of the Mother Church. But even on this score in the Church for a long time there was no unanimous opinion whether it was possible to accept those who had fallen away and how, as is well evidenced by the Novatian schism in the middle of the 3rd century. From the first 9 rules of the Ancyra Council it is clearly visible how severely those who fell away from the right faith were punished.

Returning to the feat of the new martyrs, it is worth noting that, as a rule, they were not required to renounce Christ, since the goal of the Soviet government was completely different - not to change the religious worldview of the individual, but to destroy religion along with the individual. Of course I was on initial stage and ideological struggle, especially among young people, who from a very young age were taught that there is no God and everything connected with Him is “old wives’ tales” that interfere to the Soviet man on the way to a bright future. If a person remained true to his religious beliefs, then he was isolated from society under a political article. Moreover, the Soviet government did not look at the age, gender, or social status of the believer. For example, in SLON, two very young cabin boys, 12 and 14 years old, were shot for professing their faith in God. Many similar examples can be given, and the trial and execution of minors were carried out strictly within the framework of the law, which allowed children to be shot as early as 12 years old! To confirm our thoughts, we quote the appeal of V.I. Lenin in a letter marked “strictly secret” to members of the Politburo during an artificially created famine in the Volga region dated March 19, 1922:

“Please do not make copies under any circumstances, butto every member of the Politbureau (Comrade Kalinin too) to make his notes on the document itself...

It is now and only now, when people are being eaten in starved areas and hundreds, if not thousands of corpses are lying on the roads, that we can (and therefore must!) carry out the confiscation of church valuables with the most furious and merciless energy and without stopping at the suppression of any resistance... How larger number If representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie manage to be shot on this occasion, so much the better.

To oversee the fastest and most successful implementation of these measures, appoint immediately at the congress, i.e. at its secret meeting, a special commission with the obligatory participation of Comrade Trotsky and Comrade Kalinin, without any publication about this commission and so that the subordination of all operations to it was ensured and carried out not on behalf of the commission, but in an all-Soviet and all-party manner.”

But we know that “there is nothing hidden that will not be made manifest, nor hidden that will not be made known and not revealed” (Luke 8:17), so today, having reliable data at our disposal, we can judge that the persecution by the Soviet authorities was carried out not against the counter-revolutionary clergy, but against the Church in general. Numerous facts can serve as eloquent evidence of this - starting with the company for opening the relics, the creation of an anti-church commission and public organization“The Union of Militant Atheists” and ending with the execution of clergy who were already in old age, and sometimes even disabled people who were unable to walk. They were carried to the execution on stretchers. For example, Hieromartyr Seraphim Chichagov was 82 years old. On November 30, 1937, seriously ill, he was arrested in the village of Udelnaya, taken out of his house on a stretcher, taken to Tagansk prison by ambulance, and shot on December 11.

Why is it important today to remember the feat of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia? Because in our time we are all witnessing the beginning of another persecution of the Church. As at the beginning of the 20th century, so now all this is again covered with lies, behind which stands the enemy of the human race, “for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). The desecration and desecration of shrines is presented as an act of political struggle, or even as art; the mass discreditation of prominent figures of the Russian Orthodox Church that has unfolded in the media and the Internet, aimed at forming in the minds of our compatriots a negative image of the entire Church as a whole, is called civil criticism and even the fight for the purity of Orthodox doctrine; and those terrible caricatures towards the Church that literally flood the Internet today are painfully reminiscent of the Soviet ones. We must not remain indifferent witnesses to this struggle, which the devil has been waging against humanity for thousands of years. The fight for the soul of man, for the soul of each of us. Using the example of the feat of the new martyrs, we must convey to each of our compatriots the light of Christ’s truth, which forms spiritual and moral principles and the foundations without which it is impossible to revive the mighty and glorious Russian state.

In this regard, a separate working group has been created in the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church to deal with the issue of spreading the veneration of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia.

At the next meeting working group The following plan of events was adopted aimed at spreading the veneration of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia:

1. Publication of thematic series of books about new martyrs, confessors and passion-bearers:

- royal passion-bearers and members royal family;

– primates, holy martyrs and holy confessors of the Russian Orthodox Church;

– lay people (women, military, theologians, doctors, etc.);

– new martyrs and confessors who suffered in certain dioceses, monasteries and parishes.

2. Publication of works, diaries and letters of new martyrs and confessors (with comments and photographs).

3. Compilation of services for new martyrs and confessors.

4. Publication of biographies of ascetics of faith and piety who suffered for Christ, the issue of canonization of whom is under study.

5. Edition works of art about the new martyrs and confessors, aimed at the mass reader.

6. Publication of a series for children and youth about the new martyrs and confessors who suffered in at a young age(working title: “Heroes of the Spirit”).

7. Publication of a magazine or almanac (working title “Feat of Faith”), as well as a specialized Internet portal.

8. Creation of television and radio programs, as well as a series of television and radio programs about new martyrs and confessors.

9. Creation of a unified database about new martyrs and confessors based on the already existing database of the Orthodox St. Tikhon Humanitarian University.

10. Creation of a church-wide museum of new martyrs.

11. Create a study on modern history The Church in Russia, in which this or that period of persecution would be viewed through the prism of the feat of the lives of the new martyrs and confessors.

12. Conducting a church-wide competition for children and youth to write a story about the new martyrs and confessors. Best works publish in a magazine.

13. Publication of an annual specialized calendar.

As can be clearly seen from the plan, a huge and varied amount of work needs to be done. Some projects are already being successfully implemented, but many of them are waiting in the wings.

Veneration of the new martyrs should become the force that will help revive the Fatherland.

Appendix No. 1

JOINT DECISION OF THE CEC AND SNK OF THE USSR

On measures to combat juvenile crime

In order to quickly eliminate crime among minors, the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decide:

1) Minors starting from the age of 12 who are convicted of committing thefts, causing violence, bodily harm, mutilation, murder or attempts to murder, should be brought to criminal court with the application of all criminal penalties.

2) Persons convicted of inciting or attracting minors to participate in various crimes, as well as forcing minors to engage in speculation, prostitution, begging, etc. - shall be punished with imprisonment of at least 5 years.

3) Cancel Art. 8 “Basic principles of criminal legislation of the USSR and Union Republics.”

4) To propose to the Governments of the Union Republics to bring the criminal legislation of the republics into compliance with this resolution.

Prev. USSR Central Executive Committee M. KALININ

Prev. Council of People's Commissars of the USSR V. MOLOTOV

Secretary of the USSR Central Executive Committee I. AKULOV

Moscow, Kremlin

Appendix No. 2

Circular from the USSR Prosecutor's Office and the USSR Supreme Court to prosecutors and court chairmen on the procedure for applying capital punishment to minors

Store along with the cipher

№ 1/001537 - 30/002517

To all prosecutors of the union republics, regional, regional, military, transport, railway prosecutors, water basin prosecutors; prosecutors of special boards, prosecutor of Moscow. To all chairmen of the supreme courts, regional, regional courts, military tribunals, linear courts; courts of water basins, chairmen of special boards of regional, regional and supreme courts, chairman of the Moscow City Court.

In view of incoming requests, in connection with the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated April 7 this year. “On measures to combat juvenile delinquency”, we explain:

1. Among the criminal penalties provided for in Art. 1 of the said resolution also applies to capital punishment (execution).

2. In accordance with this, the indication in the note to Art. 13 “Fundamental principles of the criminal legislation of the USSR and the union republics and the corresponding articles of the criminal codes of the union republics (Article 22 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR and the corresponding articles of the Criminal Code of other union republics), according to which execution is not applied to persons under 18 years of age.

3. In view of the fact that the use of capital punishment (execution) can only take place in exceptional cases and that the use of this measure in relation to minors must be placed under especially careful control, we invite all prosecutorial and judicial authorities to inform the Union Prosecutor and the Chairman of the Supreme Court in advance USSR on all cases of bringing juvenile offenders to criminal court, in respect of whom capital punishment may be applied.

4. When minors are brought before a criminal court under articles of the law that provide for the application of capital punishment (execution), their cases are considered in the regional (regional) courts in the general manner.

Prosecutor of the USSR Vyshinsky

Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR Vinokurov

“For this reason, if any honest churches are consecrated without the holy relics of the martyrs, we determine: let the placement of the relics be performed in them with the usual prayer. If from now on a certain bishop appears, consecrating a temple without holy relics: let him be deposed, as if he had transgressed church traditions” (7th pr. of the VII Ecumenical Council).

“101st kilometer” is an unofficial term that denotes a restriction in the rights to individual categories citizens. The restriction consisted of a ban on settling and living within a 100-kilometer zone around Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Minsk and a number of other large or “closed” cities.

“Sie ist das Opium des Volks” (Karl Marx: Einleitung zur Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie; in: Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher 1844, S. 71f, zitiert nach MEW, Bd. 1, S. 378-379).

On the attitude of the workers’ party to religion (May 13 (26), 1909) // Lenin V.I. Complete set of works. - 5th ed. - M.: Publishing house of political literature, 1964-1981. - T. 17. - P. 416-418.

“Black Funnel” - a vehicle for transporting prisoners of those years. This favorite car of the NKVD during the mass repressions was painted only black, which is why it received such a nickname among the people.

Novatianism is a schismatic movement of the 3rd-7th centuries. Novatian, the founder of this schism, who denounced the practice of the Roman Bishop Cornelius of accepting into the Church those who had previously fallen away from it, demanded that they be rejected forever. He justified this as follows. If the Church is a society of saints, then all those who have committed mortal sins or renounced the faith must be cast out of it forever, otherwise the Church will become unclean and cease to be holy. They were often called Kafars (from καθαροί - pure). It is noteworthy that I Ecumenical Council recognized the legitimacy and correctness of the Navatian hierarchy, albeit schismatic.

GARF. F. 9401. Op. 12. D. 103. L. 35. Typographic copy. First officially published in Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, No. 81 of April 8, 1935.

Report by the deputy head of the Department of Contemporary History of the Russian Orthodox Church, priest Alexander Mazyrin, on “The Unity of the Church and the People: Lessons of the Past and Problems of the Present,” dedicated to the Year Russian history(May 18-19, 2012).

The year 2012 is significant for many anniversaries in Russian history. The 400th anniversary of the expulsion of the Poles and traitors from Moscow and the overcoming of the Troubles of the 17th century, the 200th anniversary of the repulsion of the invasion of the “Gulls and the Twelve Languages.” These events are among the most glorious pages in the history of the Russian State, when the unity Orthodox people provided him with great victories. At the same time, less round dates of events that cause grief occur in the same year. 775 years ago, the heavy Mongol-Tatar yoke began in Rus', when the Russian people, separated in their destinies, were unable to give a proper rebuff to the eastern conquerors. And, perhaps, the darkest events took place in Russia 75 years ago, which in 1937 became the apotheosis of a new yoke, when the ruling power unleashed the most severe terror on its people, the likes of which had never been seen in Russian history. According to NKVD statistics, there were about 700 thousand people alone who were executed under sentences during the “Great Terror” of 1937-1938. One can, of course, ask why remember this in the Year of Russian History - the year of celebration of our great victories? The answer is simple, although perhaps unexpected for some: in the bloody year of 1937, we also had a great Victory in Russia.

An explanation for this can be seen in the words of one of those executed that year, Metropolitan Joseph (Petrov) of Petrograd: “The death of martyrs for the Church is a victory over violence, not a defeat.” Even earlier in the history of the Church, this idea was expressed by the Christian apologist Tertullian. “We win when we are killed,” he addressed Roman pagan rulers in the 3rd century. “The more you destroy us, the more we multiply; the blood of Christians is the seed” (“Apology”, ch. 50). Obviously, it would not occur to anyone to call the “Leninist guards” Bukharin, Kamenev, Zinoviev or the “Stalinist people’s commissars” Yagoda and Yezhov the winners - the inspirers and conductors of the Bolshevik terror, who became its victims in the late 1930s. Broken and crushed by the system they themselves had built, humiliatingly repenting before “comrade” Stalin for deviating from the “general line of the party,” they disgusted both “their own” and “theirs.” Another matter Christian martyrs, whose names constituted the eternal glory of the Church. Over the past 20 years or so, the Russian Church has glorified by name more than 1,700 new martyrs and confessors. And this is only a small part of those who suffered blamelessly for Christ during the period of Bolshevik persecution, the total number of which many times exceeded the number of ascetics of the era of Holy Rus'. We can say that spiritually, in terms of the number of revealed saints, the years of the “Great Terror” became the time of greatest prosperity for the Russian Church, and therefore for Russia. This gives grounds to talk about our Victory in 1937.

Outwardly, however, as a result of Stalin's persecution, the Russian Church was diminished as never before. By the beginning of World War II, only four bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church remained in the cathedra throughout the entire territory of the USSR: metropolitans and one vicar each. A decade earlier there were about two hundred of them, that is, 50 times more. Of the approximately 50 thousand churches that the Russian Orthodox Church had before the revolution, by the end of the 1930s several hundred remained open (officially - several thousand, but in most of them there were no services, since due to the terror there was no one to serve). “As a result of our operational measures,” Yezhov boasted to Stalin at the end of 1937, “the episcopate of the Orthodox Church was almost completely eliminated, which significantly weakened and disorganized the church.”

One of the “achievements” of the atheists was that, as a result of their purposeful policy pursued since the early 1920s, the Russian Church suffered a whole series divisions. The Ukrainian “self-saints,” Renovationists, Gregorians and a whole series of other less significant schisms fell away from church unity. In the Patriarchal Church itself, since the late 1920s, a strong “right-wing opposition” arose to the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), at the same time the administrative unity with the Moscow Patriarchate was interrupted. “You divided the entire people into hostile camps and plunged them into fratricide of unprecedented cruelty,” he denounced the so-called “ people's commissars"in 1918. Divisions among the people were followed by divisions in the Church. The atheistic government understood that it was easier to destroy the Church piecemeal, so in every possible way it provoked internal disorder in it. Before the church consciousness, such a malicious policy of the authorities raised questions: how to preserve the unity of the Church and what should lie at the basis of this unity.

One of the few Russian foreign apologists of the Moscow Patriarchate at that time, Professor I.A. Stratonov put forward in this regard the following theory: “The unity of the Church is represented by a single ecclesiastical authority. Unity with the Church is protected only by obedience to this authority. In this regard, in order to avoid church anarchy, the conscience of a person, a member of the Church, is bound. No position in the Church of an individual frees him from the duty of subordination to church authority and only aggravates it.” The idea, in general, is understandable and captivating in its simplicity. In fact, the Roman Catholic Church has been building its ecclesiology on this principle—single ecclesiastical authority—for many centuries.

In 1931, Metropolitan Sergius published a small theological treatise, “The Church’s Attitude to Separated Societies,” in which he wrote, in particular: “The Renovationist and Grigorievskaya and similar modern hierarchies undoubtedly originate from the Orthodox bishops; The process of consecration itself does not raise any particular objections in most cases. However, after the ban imposed on the leaders of the new schism, we recognize these hierarchies as graceless and their sacraments invalid (except baptism). […] Foreign schisms are in the same situation, for example. Karlovatsky". Who Metropolitan Sergius included in the graceless “modern hierarchies” like the Renovationists and Grigorievites can be understood from the definition of his Synod, adopted in July 1929. In this definition, among the “schismatics” were mentioned “followers of the former Leningrad Metropolitan Joseph [Petrovykh], the former Gdov Bishop Dimitri [Lyubimov], the former Urazov Bishop Alexy [Buy],” that is, those who were then generally called “Josephites.” The imposition of a ban on them in the priesthood, according to Metropolitan Sergius, automatically made their sacred rites invalid (except for baptism), that is, it rejected them not only from administrative, but also from grace-filled church unity.

The problem, however, was that in the realities of that time, the highest church authority in the person of Metropolitan Sergius was far from free to impose canonical punishments. So, in December 1927, the head of the 6th department of the Secret Department of the OGPU (responsible for the fight against the “church counter-revolution”) E.A. Tuchkov asked to inform his Leningrad “comrades” (in top secret, of course): “We will influence Sergius so that he bans some opposition bishops from serving.” And indeed, soon after this statement by Tuchkov, Metropolitan Sergius and his Synod imposed a ban on the priesthood on two opposition Leningrad bishops - Dimitri (Lyubimov) and Sergius (Druzhinin), followers of Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovs), after which, according to the teachings of Metropolitan Sergius, they were should have been considered graceless. It turned out, therefore, that the action of grace was directly dependent on the administrative acts of the Moscow Patriarchate, which itself was under the strong influence of the OGPU. That is, to put it simply, the security officer Tuchkov ended up being a kind of “distributor of grace.” If we remember that the task of the OGPU included the complete disintegration of the Church from within, its fragmentation into the maximum number of parts, it is not difficult to understand what the “disciplinary ecclesiology” of Metropolitan Sergius and his apologists turned out to be for church unity.

The theory and practice of Metropolitan Sergius, however, did not meet with support from best representatives Russian Orthodox hierarchy. Thus, the most authoritative hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church of that time - the first, according to the will of the Holy Patriarch Tikhon, candidate for the position of Patriarchal Locum Tenens, which the atheistic authorities did not give him to occupy - Hieromartyr Metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov) wrote in 1929: “Church discipline is capable of preserving its effectiveness only as long as it is a valid reflection of the hierarchical conscience of the Catholic Church; Discipline can never replace this conscience. As soon as it presents its demands not by virtue of the instructions of this conscience, but by motives alien to the Church, insincere, the individual hierarchical conscience will certainly take the side of the conciliar-hierarchical principle of the existence of the Church, which is not at all the same thing with external unity no matter what. no matter what." That is, Metropolitan Kirill introduced a significant amendment to the “disciplinary ecclesiology” of Metropolitan Sergius for “hierarchical conscience.” Without taking into account the dictates of this conscience, church discipline could turn from a means of strengthening the unity of the Church into a means of destroying it.

Returning now to the theme of the feat of the new martyrs stated in the title of the report, it should be said that in those years they were people who tried to the last to adhere to the dictates of the Christian conscience, even when it might seem that in order to preserve the church organization it would be more correct to resort to a certain deceit. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church of that time - Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky), whose deputy, in fact, was Metropolitan Sergius - year after year, starting from the end of 1925, spent time in solitary confinement and distant exile. He was offered freedom in exchange for secret cooperation with the OGPU. E.A. himself approached him with such a proposal. Tuchkov. Metropolitan Peter refused, explaining this to the chairman of the OGPU like this: “Needless to say, this kind occupations are incompatible with my title and, moreover, dissimilar to my nature.” Metropolitan Peter preferred new prison torments, which ended with execution in 1937, to doing what was contrary to his conscience. Metropolitan Sergius, as far as one can judge, preferred to act differently. According to the testimony of Archbishop Pitirim (Krylov), the former manager of the affairs of the Synod, “Metropolitan Sergius of Stragorodsky himself instructed the bishops not only not to refuse secret cooperation with the NKVD, but even to seek this cooperation. This was done in the interests of the church, because Metropolitan Stragorodsky understood that the bishop, who had gained the trust local authority The NKVD will be placed in more favorable conditions for managing the diocese under its jurisdiction, it will not have any special troubles with registration and, in general, some kind of guarantee will be created against the possibility of arrest. […] It goes without saying that the bishops understood Stragorodsky’s installations as a maneuver aimed at preserving the church in difficult conditions for it.”

However, the “maneuvers” of Metropolitan Sergius, as already mentioned, could not save the Church from physical destruction during the years of the “Great Terror.” Moreover, with their help it was impossible to maintain church unity. On the contrary, with his collaborationism, the Deputy Locum Tenens repelled Orthodox zealots from the Moscow Patriarchate. “The whole Church felt that Metropolitan Sergius had committed a crime, that he had surrendered control of the Church to the power of the atheists, and was acting, and would continue to act, under the dictation of the GPU,” wrote priest Mikhail Polsky, who fled Russia in 1931. Metropolitan Sergius’s policy towards the authorities went far beyond the concept of “loyalty”. One of the representatives of the domestic “right” church opposition explained this in 1930 to his foreign acquaintance, who tried to justify the Deputy: “The Church has been and will be loyal to the authorities, will not fight it, will obey, recognize, etc. But you they did not want to understand and see... the difference between the messages, letters and other things of the Patriarch and Metropolitan Peter and the acts of Metropolitan Sergius. There was complete loyalty, recognition, submission, not formal, but essentially religious (power from God), but there was no service, there was no renunciation of church internal freedom and independence, there was no oblivion about the truth of God; there was a division between Caesar's and God's. The Patriarch, as is known, himself commemorated the authorities, but he never committed acts that disgraced the dignity of the Church or limited Her freedom. When appointing bishops, he did not ask anyone for the sanction of the GPU; he did not subject those disliked by the Government to church repression; on the contrary, contrary to the will of the Government, he insisted on commemorating the exiled bishops and retaining their sees. Peter did the same. And how many people were expelled by the GPU because of this. After all, there is a line, you won’t argue with these, where loyalty ends and service begins (to the detriment of the church’s cause), where servility and lackeyness begin. Metropolitan Sergius crossed this line - it’s so clear that it’s obvious that you’re amazed that you don’t understand this.”

If we talk about which of the hierarchs did the most to preserve the internal unity of the Patriarchal Church in the 1920-1930s, then this is, without any doubt, the Hieromartyr Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky). For 12 years he headed the Russian Orthodox Church - the most difficult 12 years - from 1925 to 1937. Of these 12 years, he spent more than 11 years in prison, away from people. However, despite his isolation, the Patriarchal Locum Tenens continued to play a colossal role in the life of the Russian Church. It was a symbol of confessional standing, a symbol of spiritual non-enslavement to the atheistic authorities. And this standing in the truth united the entire Russian Church around his personality. And the “Sergians”, and the “Josephites”, and the “Karlovites” - they all continued to see Metropolitan Peter as the head of the Russian Church. And thus, despite external division and absurd accusations of “gracelessness,” internally the Russian Church remained united. To a large extent, this was the result of the feat of Metropolitan Peter. He was repeatedly offered freedom in exchange for renouncing his title and locum tenens. But in the event of such a renunciation, the Russian Church would lose its Primate, recognized by all, and the discord within it would become even more painful. At the cost of his incredible suffering, Metropolitan Peter preserved the unity of the Russian Church.

“Ecclesiology of discipline” of Metropolitan Sergius, Metropolitan Peter, Metropolitan Kirill, Metropolitan Joseph and those who followed them preferred the “ecclesiology of confession.” They did not believe that in conditions of severe persecution it was necessary to “save” the Church various kinds dubious “maneuvers” (and Metropolitan Sergius declared just that: “I am saving the Church!”). Their faith was that the Lord Himself is able to save His Church, but they were required to remain faithful to Him, to stand in the Truth to the end. And indeed, as in the first centuries, the blood of the martyrs became the new seed of Christianity. Thanks to the feat of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia, the Russian Church did not disappear, but survived and was reborn. Thanks to them, the unity of the Russian Church, which was broken in the late 1920s, was restored. Wasting his “canonical” punishments, Metropolitan Sergius was able to keep few of those who disagreed with his policies in subjection. The division between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Foreign Synod of Bishops lasted for decades, and it was difficult to imagine that it would be possible to heal it. But the memory of the new martyrs lived in the minds of church people both in Russia and abroad. In 1981, the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors was canonized by the Russian Church Abroad. In 1989, when the agonizing communist regime was no longer able to restrain the religious revival in Russia, the head of the host of new martyrs and confessors, the holy Patriarch Tikhon, was glorified in Moscow. In 1997, the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Peter was canonized, who, as was said, was equally recognized as the head of the Russian Church both in the Fatherland and abroad. Finally, in 2000, the entire Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia was glorified by the Council of Bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate. Soon after this, a rapid rapprochement between the two parts of the Russian Church began, ending with the restoration of their canonical communion, the 5th anniversary of which we are solemnly celebrating these days. The reunification of the two parts of the Russian Church symbolically marked the end of the Civil War in Russia. Thus, national unity, destroyed by the revolution, was restored by the feat of the new martyrs.

To summarize, we can say that the strength and unity of any people, its ability to respond to the challenges thrown at it, are determined, first of all, by its spiritual strength. The pinnacle of spiritual growth is holiness. The holy ascetics have united, are uniting and will unite the people of Russia. It is, of course, possible to gather people under the banner of false ideas, imbued with hatred, such as, for example, communism or fascism. But such a human unification will not last, as we see vivid historical examples of. The feat of the new martyrs has eternal significance. The power of holiness demonstrated by them defeated the malice of the God-fighting Bolsheviks. The veneration of the new martyrs and confessors before our eyes united the Russian Church, outwardly, through the efforts of the same atheists, which divided it in the late 1920s. The 70-year atheistic captivity of Russia has shaken spiritual foundations to the limit public life. Without a return to true values, the ideal of which is holiness, our society will remain doomed. If the people of our country have a future, then only in following the Truth, the fidelity of which was demonstrated by our saints, the closest of whom to us are the new martyrs and confessors of Russia.

According to official data, in 1937, 353,074 people were sentenced to death, in 1938 - 328,618 (see: Mozokhin O.B. The right to repression. Extrajudicial powers of authorities state security. Statistical information on the activities of the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD-MGB (1918-1953): Monograph. 2nd ed., expanded. and additional M., 2011. S. 458, 462.

“I follow only Christ...”: Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh), 1930 / Publ., intro. and note. A.V. Mazyrina // Theological collection. 2002. Issue. 9. P. 405.

According to the official website of the Moscow Patriarchate for the years 1989-2011, 1866 ascetics of piety were canonized as saints of the Russian Orthodox Church, including 1776 new martyrs and confessors of Russia (see:

Quote by: Khaustov V., Samuelson L. Stalin, NKVD and repressions of 1936-1938. M., 2010. P. 408.

Acts of His Holiness Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, later documents and correspondence on the canonical succession of the highest church authority, 1917-1943 / Comp. M.E. Gubonin. M., 1994. P. 149.

Stratonov I. Documents of the All-Russian Patriarchal Church of recent times // Church Bulletin of the Western European Diocese. 1928. No. 14. P. 30.

Sergius (Stragorodsky), Metropolitan. The attitude of the Church towards separated societies // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. 1931. No. 3. P. 5.

Acts... P. 644.

“Owl. secret. Urgently. Personally. Comrade Tuchkov": Reports from Leningrad to Moscow, 1927-1928 / Publ., entry. and note. A. Mazyrina // Theological collection. 2002. Issue. 10. P. 369.

Acts... P. 636.

Right there. P. 883.

Central Election Commission of the FSB of the Russian Federation. D. R-49429. L. 151-152.

[Polish] Michael, priest. The position of the Church in Soviet Russia: An essay by a priest who fled from Russia. Jerusalem, 1931. P. 52.

Acts... P. 538. .

In the history of Russia, the 20th century was marked by brutal persecution of the Orthodox Church by Soviet authorities. Many clergy and ordinary believers were persecuted to the point of death by the atheist state for their religious beliefs. The feat of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia is the clearest example of fidelity to Christ and His Church. However, their example still requires full reflection. A contribution to this process is an article by the Chairman of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Once our Lord Jesus Christ, turning to His disciples, said: “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit...” (Matthew 28:19). The Church, heeding the call of the Savior, has been carrying out its apostolic ministry for two thousand years, but people have not always and everywhere accepted the teaching about the true God. For a society stricken by passions and vices, the Beatitudes and the teaching of love for God and neighbor became a serious irritant and caused indignation and rage, since they exposed the unrighteous way of life in which this society lived. When we are asked: “Who are the martyrs?”, we give a clear answer: “These are those who, for the sake of faith in Christ, accepted suffering and even death.” As an example, we cite the first martyr Archdeacon Stephen, the Bethlehem babies, those who in the first centuries of our era, at the dawn of Christianity, suffered for Christ and, of course, the new martyrs and confessors of Russia in the 20th century. Almost a thousand years after the Baptism of Rus' with “water” under Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir, our Fatherland was re-baptized with “blood”. What significance does their feat have for us today? Yes, there are almost two thousand more saints in our Church, but is that only it? To answer this question, it is necessary to better understand what martyrdom is.

Undoubtedly, martyrdom has always been recognized by the Church as a special type of holiness. Both in ancient times and in modern times, not everyone was able to testify “even to death” about their faith in God. The history of the Church has preserved a lot of evidence that even among the clergy there were individuals who, out of fear of death, and sometimes simply imprisonment, renounced Christ. There is also authentic evidence that from the very first centuries of Christianity, believers treated the remains of martyrs and their burial places with special reverence. Often in such places chapels and temples were erected, where the bloodless Sacrifice was offered, and the feat of the warrior of Christ buried here was glorified. Gradually, this became a tradition and in 787, at the VII Ecumenical Council (II Nicaea), it was accepted as a generally binding rule that the temple must be consecrated on the relics of the martyr. One of the first teachers of the Church, Tertullian, wrote this: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity.” This remarkable and surprisingly accurate definition leads us to the conclusion that the true Church of Christ is based on the blood of martyrs, which is figuratively reflected in the 7th rule of the VII Ecumenical Council. Therefore, when we remember the feat of the Russian new martyrs, we must remember that it was they who were the fruitful seed thanks to which the Russian Orthodox Church lives and flourishes today.

Speaking about confessing the Name of Christ, one cannot ignore one interesting question: were the new martyrs forced to renounce Christ, unlike the martyrs of the first centuries? Indeed, if we turn to the history of those years, we can find that no one demanded a direct renunciation of Christ on pain of death. Isolated exceptional cases can only confirm this. Why then did they suffer and were canonized as saints? Looking ahead a little, we note that the feat of the new Russian martyrs differed from the feat of the first martyrs.

In January 1918, the Soviet government proclaimed “freedom of conscience,” which formally indicated a loyal attitude to religion. The same position was officially voiced in the international community: the Soviet government is fighting not only counter-revolution, but also religion. It was under this pretext that the fight against the Russian Orthodox Church was carried out, and in the 30s, millions of people were arrested, detained or shot under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, which read: “Any action aimed at overthrowing, undermining or weakening the power of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Councils is recognized as counter-revolutionary... also such an action, which, while not directly aimed at achieving the above goals, nevertheless, is known to the person who committed it, contains in "an attempt on the main political or economic achievements of the proletarian revolution". The best result of prosecution under this article for the convicted person and all members of his family was “one hundred and first kilometer”, and the worst was death, since the death penalty was execution. In those years, the latter option was many times superior to the first. In this regard, some researchers believe that all those believers who were subject to criminal prosecution in the USSR suffered not for their religious beliefs, but for anti-Soviet political views. Let's see if this is actually true.

It is no secret that believers in those years did not feel sympathy for the Soviet government, since it took an atheistic, godless position. But being ill-disposed is one thing and counter-revolutionary activity is quite another.

“Religion is the opium of the people,” this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire worldview of Marxism on the question of religion. Marxism always views all modern religions and churches, all and any religious organizations as organs of bourgeois reaction, serving to defend the exploitation and stupefying of the working class... One must be able to fight religion... This struggle must be put in connection with the concrete practice of the class movement, aimed at eliminating the social roots of religion... We must fight religion. This is the ABC of all materialism and, therefore, Marxism.".

It is noteworthy that this article was first published back in 1909, when there was no sign of Soviet power, but the fight against the Church had already been proclaimed. Expressions such as: “Religion is the opium of the people”, “Through godlessness - to communism”, “Religion is poison”, “The fight against religion is the fight for socialism”, etc., became the official slogans of the Soviet government. They are hung on banners in public places, educational and government institutions to incite hostility towards the Church among the population. On February 9, 1918, the first Soviet satirical magazine “Red Devil” was published, on the pages of which it was caricatured how the devil kicks, impales, kills, etc. clergy and religious citizens.

One of the distinctive features of the suffering path of the new martyrs was the complete emptiness of information that often accompanied their feat. When a person was taken away in the middle of the night by a “black funnel,” no one knew where he was taken, what would happen to him, or whether he was even alive. “Both old and young” understood this in those years, so no one even hoped that anyone would ever know about his tragic fate. Apparently for this reason, in those years it was customary among believers to ask each other for forgiveness before going to bed: “Forgive me, for Christ’s sake!”, because every night could be the last.

In the first centuries everything was different. Society by its nature was religious and the persecution that was carried out against Christians, unlike the Soviet authorities, pursued a different goal - not to destroy people’s faith in God, but to change it to the “correct” one. The trial of a martyr was, as a rule, public. He was tortured, seduced, exhorted, thereby trying to achieve one single goal - for the martyr to renounce Christ and convert to another faith: paganism, Islam, etc. If the goal was achieved, then all persecution by the authorities stopped. “A fallen away” or “fallen away”, and this is exactly what a person who renounced his faith was considered to be, was accepted by society, but rejected by the Church. Often, especially when persecution ceased, many of those who fell away, having repented of their cowardice and renunciation of Christ, were accepted into the bosom of the Mother Church. But even on this score in the Church for a long time there was no unanimous opinion - whether it is possible to accept those who had fallen away and how, as is well evidenced by the Novatian schism in the middle of the 3rd century. From the first 9 rules of the Ancyra Council it is clearly visible how severely those who fell away from the right faith were punished.

Returning to the feat of the new martyrs, it is worth noting that, as a rule, they were not required to renounce Christ, since the goal of the Soviet government was completely different - not to change the religious worldview of the individual, but to destroy religion along with the individual. Of course, there was also an ideological struggle at the initial stage, especially among young people, who from a very young age were taught that there is no God and everything connected with Him is “grandmother’s” fairy tales that hinder Soviet people on the path to a bright future. If a person remained true to his religious beliefs, then he was isolated from society under a political article. Moreover, the Soviet government did not look at the age, gender, or social status of the believer. For example, in SLON, two very young cabin boys, 12 and 14 years old, were shot for professing their faith in God. Many similar examples can be given, and the trial and execution of minors were carried out strictly within the framework of the law, which allowed children to be shot as early as 12 years old! To confirm our thoughts, we quote the appeal of V.I. Lenin in a letter marked “strictly secret” to members of the Politburo during an artificially created famine in the Volga region dated March 19, 1922:

“We ask you not to make copies under any circumstances, but for each member of the Politburo (Comrade Kalinin too) to make their notes on the document itself...

It is now and only now, when people are being eaten in starved areas and hundreds, if not thousands of corpses are lying on the roads, that we can (and therefore must!) carry out the confiscation of church valuables with the most furious and merciless energy and without stopping at the suppression of any resistance... The more representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie can be shot on this occasion, the better.

To oversee the fastest and most successful implementation of these measures, appoint immediately at the congress, i.e. at its secret meeting, a special commission with the obligatory participation of Comrade Trotsky and Comrade Kalinin, without any publication about this commission and so that the subordination of all operations to it was ensured and carried out not in the name of the commission, but in an all-Soviet and all-party manner".

But we know that “There is nothing secret that would not become obvious, nor hidden that would not become known and would not be revealed”(Luke 8:17), therefore, today, having reliable data at our disposal, we can judge that persecution by the Soviet authorities was carried out not against the counter-revolutionary clergy, but against the Church in general. Numerous facts can serve as eloquent evidence of this - from the company to open the relics, the creation of an anti-church commission and the public organization "Union of Militant Atheists" and ending with the execution of clergy who were already in old age, and sometimes even disabled people who were unable to walk. They were carried to the execution on stretchers. For example, Hieromartyr Seraphim Chichagov was 82 years old. On November 30, 1937, seriously ill, he was arrested in the village of Udelnaya, taken out of his house on a stretcher, taken to Tagansk prison by ambulance, and shot on December 11.

Why is it important today to remember the feat of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia? Because in our time we are all witnessing the beginning of another persecution of the Church. As at the beginning of the 20th century, so now all this is again covered with lies, behind which stands the enemy of the human race, "for he is a liar and the father of lies"(John 8:44). The desecration and desecration of shrines is presented as an act of political struggle, or even as art; the mass discreditation of prominent figures of the Russian Orthodox Church that has unfolded in the media and the Internet, aimed at forming in the minds of our compatriots a negative image of the entire Church as a whole, is called civil criticism and even the fight for the purity of Orthodox doctrine; and those terrible caricatures towards the Church that literally flood the Internet today are painfully reminiscent of the Soviet ones. We must not remain indifferent witnesses to this struggle, which the devil has been waging against humanity for thousands of years. The fight for the soul of man, for the soul of each of us. Using the example of the feat of the new martyrs, we must convey to each of our compatriots the light of Christ’s truth, which forms in the individual spiritual and moral principles and foundations, without which it is impossible to revive the mighty and glorious Russian state.

At the next meeting of the working group, the following plan of activities was adopted aimed at spreading the veneration of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia:

1. Publication of thematic series of books about new martyrs, confessors and passion-bearers:

- royal martyrs and members of the royal family;

— primates, holy martyrs and holy confessors of the Russian Orthodox Church;

- lay people (women, military, theologians, doctors, etc.);

- new martyrs and confessors who suffered in certain dioceses, monasteries and parishes.

2. Publication of works, diaries and letters of new martyrs and confessors (with comments and photographs).

3. Compilation of services for new martyrs and confessors.

4. Publication of biographies of ascetics of faith and piety who suffered for Christ, the issue of canonization of which is under study.

5. Publication of works of fiction about new martyrs and confessors, aimed at the mass reader.

6. Publication of a series for children and youth about new martyrs and confessors who suffered at a young age (working title “Heroes of the Spirit”).

7. Publication of a magazine or almanac (working title “Feat of Faith”), as well as a specialized Internet portal.

8. Creation of television and radio programs, as well as a series of television and radio programs about new martyrs and confessors.

9. Creation of a unified database about new martyrs and confessors based on the already existing database of the Orthodox St. Tikhon Humanitarian University.

10. Creation of a church-wide museum of new martyrs.

11. Creation of a study on the modern history of the Church in Russia, in which this or that period of persecution would be considered through the prism of the feat of the lives of the new martyrs and confessors.

12. Conducting a church-wide competition for children and youth to write a story about the new martyrs and confessors. Publish the best works in the magazine.

13. Publication of an annual specialized calendar.

As can be clearly seen from the plan, a huge and varied amount of work needs to be done. Some projects are already being successfully implemented, but many of them are waiting in the wings.

Veneration of the new martyrs should become the force that will help revive the Fatherland.

Appendix No. 1

JOINT DECISION OF THE CEC AND SNK OF THE USSR

On measures to combat juvenile crime

In order to quickly eliminate crime among minors, the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decide:

3) Cancel Art. 8 “Basic principles of criminal legislation of the USSR and Union Republics.”

4) To propose to the Governments of the Union Republics to bring the criminal legislation of the republics into compliance with this resolution.

Prev. USSR Central Executive Committee M. KALININ

Prev. Council of People's Commissars of the USSR V. MOLOTOV

Secretary of the USSR Central Executive Committee I. AKULOV

Moscow, Kremlin

Appendix No. 2

Circular from the USSR Prosecutor's Office and the USSR Supreme Court to prosecutors and court chairmen on the procedure for applying capital punishment to minors

Store along with the cipher

№ 1/001537 — 30/002517

1. Among the criminal penalties provided for in Art. 1 of the said resolution also applies to capital punishment (execution).

Prosecutor of the USSR Vyshinsky

Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR Vinokurov

Notes:

Apologetics 50 ch.

Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR as amended in 1926 (date of adoption: November 22, 1926).

“101st kilometer” is an unofficial term that denoted restrictions on the rights of certain categories of citizens. The restriction consisted of a ban on settling and living within a 100-kilometer zone around Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Minsk and a number of other large or “closed” cities.

“Sie ist das Opium des Volks” (Karl Marx: Einleitung zur Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie; in: Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher 1844, S. 71f, zitiert nach MEW, Bd. 1, S. 378-379).

On the attitude of the workers’ party to religion (May 13 (26), 1909) // Lenin V.I. Complete set of works. — 5th ed. - M.: Publishing House of Political Literature, 1964-1981. - T. 17. - P. 416-418.

"Black Funnel" - a vehicle for transporting prisoners of those years. This favorite car of the NKVD during the mass repressions was painted only black, which is why it received such a nickname among the people.

Novatianism is a schismatic movement of the 3rd-7th centuries. Novatian, the founder of this schism, who denounced the practice of the Roman Bishop Cornelius of accepting into the Church those who had previously fallen away from it, demanded that they be rejected forever. He justified this as follows. If the Church is a society of saints, then all those who have committed mortal sins or renounced the faith must be cast out of it forever, otherwise the Church will become unclean and cease to be holy. They were often called Kafars (from καθαροί - pure). It is noteworthy that the First Ecumenical Council recognized the legitimacy of the Novatian hierarchy, albeit schismatic.

ELEPHANT - short for " Solovetsky camp special purpose"

See Appendix No. 1

See Appendix No. 2

RCKHIDNI. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 22947

GARF. F. R-8131. Op. 38. L. 6 P. 47a

On January 25, 2013, the Chairman of the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan of Kaluga and Borovsk Kliment, made a report at the plenary session International conference“The feat of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia in modern historical literature»

Dear Conference participants! I am glad to warmly welcome all of you gathered in this hall of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

The 20th century was especially difficult and tragic for our Motherland, all the people, and the Russian Orthodox Church. Russia has lost millions of its sons and daughters. Among those villainously killed and tortured during the years of persecution were an innumerable number of Orthodox Christians - laymen and monks, bishops and priests, clergy, scientists, intelligentsia, ordinary workers and peasants, whose only guilt was their firm faith in God. These were ordinary people, just like us, but they were distinguished by their special spirituality, kindness, responsiveness, cordiality, the breadth of the Russian soul, imbued with thousands of years of Christian history and culture, faith in God and loyalty to their religious beliefs. They preferred to die than to live without God, without Christ.

One can, of course, ask, why remember this? The answer is simple, although perhaps unexpected for some: in the bloody 20-30 years, we also had a great Victory in Russia. The explanation for this can be seen in the words of the Christian apologist Tertullian. “We win when we are killed,” he addressed Roman pagan rulers in the 3rd century. - The more you destroy us, the more we multiply; the blood of Christians is the seed.” The new martyrs and confessors by their feat revealed the glory of God, the bearers of which were the martyrs and confessors throughout all centuries, starting from the first century of the existence of the Church. The feat of these saints remains in the memory of the Church, which is reborn thanks to their prayers.

The rule of the Bolshevik Party in Russia, especially its first two decades, was marked by persecution of the Church on an unprecedented scale. The Bolshevik government not only wanted to build a new society according to new political principles, it did not tolerate any religion other than its belief in the “world revolution.” Anti-church repressions reached their peak in 1937, when a secret operational order was issued, according to which “church members” were equated with “anti-Soviet elements” and were subject to repression (execution or imprisonment in concentration camps). As a result of this campaign, the Orthodox Church and other religious organizations in the USSR were almost completely liquidated. The scientific literature provides figures according to which only during 1937-1938. More than 160,000 ministers of the Church were arrested (this number includes not only priests), of whom more than 100,000 were shot. In the Russian Orthodox Church throughout the USSR, by the beginning of World War II, only 4 bishops remained in the departments (out of approximately 200), and only a few hundred priests continued to serve in churches (before 1917 there were more than 50,000). Thus, at least 90% of the clergy and monastics were subjected to repression (most of them were shot), as well as a significant number of active laity.

Since the 1980s in the Russian Orthodox Church, first abroad, and then in the Fatherland, the process of canonization of new martyrs and confessors of Russia began, the peak of which occurred in 2000. To date, about two thousand ascetics have already been canonized. It can be argued that during the period of Bolshevik persecution, the Russian Church gave the world thousands of saints - truly, a great number of martyrs and confessors in modern history.

Unfortunately, there are skeptical voices who doubt whether they can be considered martyrs who suffered for Christ? Some, for example, believe that members of the Church who were subjected to repression by the Soviet regime suffered not for their faith, but for their political (anti-Soviet) views. This was precisely the position of the Soviet government itself. Indeed, formally in the USSR there was no persecution for faith. The Soviet government, having proclaimed “freedom of conscience” in January 1918, repeatedly stated that it was fighting not against religion, but against counter-revolution. Most of the church people repressed in the 1920s and 1930s were convicted of actions “aimed at overthrowing the government.”

However, the Church itself did not participate in anti-Bolshevik conspiracies and tried to be loyal to the Soviet regime, as was repeatedly evidenced by the calls of the first hierarchs, who did not want the Church to be provoked and accused of political activities. Therefore, accusations from the Bolsheviks that the Church was conducting anti-Soviet activities and counter-revolutionary agitation were completely unfounded. This means that the feat of the new martyrs and confessors consisted of their standing in the faith, and not opposition to the state as such, and they suffered because they did not renounce Christ and continued to serve Him, remaining faithful to the Church and the canonical system of Orthodoxy.

It should also be noted, and in the future, to carefully study the fact that in addition to the victims of anti-church terror, among the adult believers there were also children and young men who had not reached the age of majority. In the Solovetsky special purpose camp, two very young cabin boys, 12 and 14 years old, were shot for professing their faith in God. This happened in different places, and the trial and execution of minors were carried out within the framework of the law, which allowed children to be shot as early as 12 years old! (Resolution of the Central Executive Committee and Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of April 7, 1935, No. 3/598). And if it was possible to somehow suspect adult Christians of anti-Soviet activities, then what should children have done in order not to please the communist authorities? This leads to a clear substitution of concepts in the accusations against believers.

And, although physically by the end of the 1930s. The Russian Church was almost completely destroyed; spiritually it was not broken, for, according to the words of Metropolitan Joseph (Petrov) of Petrograd, “the death of martyrs for the Church is a victory over violence, not defeat.” As a result, the only class that survived the communist system was the clergy.

There was only one force that the Church could oppose to the insane malice of the persecutors. This is the power of FAITH, and the holiness that flows from it. Faced with this great force, with this spiritual resistance, militant Soviet atheism, against its will, was forced to retreat. The new martyrs and confessors of Russia were not afraid to live according to the Gospel even in the darkest years of Lenin’s-Stalin’s tyranny, to live as their Christian conscience told them, and were ready to die for it. The Lord accepted this great sacrifice and, by His Providence, directed the course of history during the Second World War in such a way that the Soviet leadership was forced to abandon plans for the brutal eradication of religion in the USSR. But no matter how the subsequent periods of Soviet history were called (“thaw”, “stagnation”), during the years of Soviet power (40-80s of the twentieth century), believers were subjected to repression for their religious views and loyalty to Christ.

In the past century, the Church has faced a colossal phenomenon, something it has never encountered before - this is a massive feat of martyrdom. The appearance of an incredible number of saints. Over the past years, the Russian Orthodox Church has collected numerous testimonies about Christians who suffered persecution for the faith of Christ in the 20th century. Extensive material has been accumulated that allows us to objectively assess the situation of that period. However, it is very difficult to comprehend such a huge amount of information in a short time. Careful and lengthy work will be required.

Unfortunately, we know too little about the specific exploits of the new martyrs and their spiritual heritage. Listing their names, it is currently very difficult for us to say something about their life and righteous death. In this regard, there is a great need for accessible narrative literature. We now need not only historical research, but also fiction books, historical stories, poems, and so on.

Today the Russian Orthodox Church is trying to popularize and make widely known the feat of the Russian new martyrs. In order to implement the Determination of the Council of Bishops on February 2-4, 2011 “On measures to preserve the memory of the new martyrs, confessors and all those who suffered innocently from the atheists during the years of persecution”, at the last meeting of the Holy Synod in December 2012, it was decided to create a Church-Public Council for perpetuating the memory of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia under the chairmanship of His Holiness the Patriarch.

On November 6, 2012, as part of the exhibition-forum “Orthodox Rus'”, the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Foundation for the Preservation of Spiritual and Moral Culture “Pokrov” held a presentation of a comprehensive targeted program for disseminating the veneration of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia “Lights of Russia of the 20th century”. This program is being implemented with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill and is aimed at creating information conditions and opportunities for church-wide veneration and glorification of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia, understanding and assimilating the greatness of their spiritual feat.

In order for the memory of the new martyrs to be strengthened in our society as an example of the steadfastness of the faith, it is necessary to intensify work to expand the veneration of the holy new martyrs and confessors among the people. You should:

1. Conduct church and social events (conferences, forums, conventions);

2. Study the history of the feat of the new martyrs and confessors in educational institutions, both theological (seminaries, schools) and general education (gymnasiums, schools);

3. Create documentaries and feature films, host television programs, publish literature dedicated to the feat of the new martyrs and confessors;

4. To create diocesan centers for promoting the veneration of the feat of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia at the diocesan and parish level, which would collect relevant material, systematize it and study it.

To summarize, we can say that the strength and unity of any people, its ability to respond to the challenges thrown at it, are determined, first of all, by its spiritual strength. The pinnacle of spiritual growth is holiness. The holy ascetics have united, are uniting and will unite the people of Russia. It is, of course, possible to gather people under the banner of false ideas, imbued with hatred. But such a human unification will not last, as we see vivid historical examples of. The feat of the new martyrs has eternal significance. The power of holiness demonstrated by them defeated the malice of the God-fighting Bolsheviks. The veneration of the new martyrs and confessors, before our eyes, united the Russian Church, outwardly, through the efforts of the same atheists, which was divided at the end of the 1920s. But without a return to true values, the ideal of which is holiness, our society will remain doomed. If the people of our country have a future, then it is only in following the Truth, the fidelity of which was demonstrated by our saints, the closest of whom to us are the new martyrs and confessors of Russia.