Russian Orthodox Patriarch Visits Katyn Memorial

Patriarch Cyril (Gundyayev) of Moscow has visited the Katyn Memorial in Russia's Smolensk region to pay his respects to the memory of the many thousands of Russians and Poles executed there by the Soviet government. As part of his visit to the memorial the patriarch celebrated the Sunday Liturgy in the memorial Church of the Resurrection. More here and here.

St. Elizabeth the Royal Martyr

Joyous feast! Today we commemorate the martyrdom in Alpayevsk of St. Elizabeth the Royal Martyr and her companions, the Royal Martyrs Sergius, John, Constantine, Igor, and Vladimir and the New Martyr Barbara.

St. Elizabeth, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England and the older sister of St. Alexandra the Royal Martyr, was a German princess who converted to Orthodoxy after her marriage to a member of the Russian imperial family. Following her husband's assassination she withdrew from the world to found the women's Community of Sts. Mary and Martha, which was dedicated to caring for the sick and poor.

During the October Revolution St. Elizabeth was arrested by the Bolsheviks and exiled to the Ural Mountains, where she together with her companions in martyrdom were killed by being thrown down into an abandoned mine shaft. The survivors were finished off with grenades through into the shaft by their murderers. St. Elizabeth could be heard singing the Cherubicon as she died.

More on St. Elizabeth's life can be found here. May her blessing and prayers be with us all!

Photo of the Day: Commemoration of the New Martyrs of Butovo

This past Saturday was the Synaxis of the Holy New Martyrs of Butovo, who have been memorialized by a church on the site of their martyrdom co-founded by Patriarch Alexis (Ridiger) of Moscow and Metropolitan Laurus (Skurla) of New York of blessed memory. Pictured is Patriarch Kirill (Gundyayev) of Moscow celebrating the festal services in Butovo this past weekend.

Russian Orthodox Commission on Canonizing Saints Meets in Moscow

The Synodal Commission on the Canonization of Saints of the Russian Orthodox Church met today at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow to discuss the Commission's ongoing work to glorify the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Soviet Yoke and issues that have developed in the Commission's cooperative work with local diocesan commissions on the glorification of saints. (In the Russian Orthodox Church dioceses are blessed to glorify saints from their regions, who are then only blessed for veneration by the faithful of the particular diocese that glorified them.) More (in Russian) here.

Eparchy of Moscow Discusses Muscovite New Martyrs

At a meeting the deans of the Eparchy of Moscow today ways of perpetuating the memory of the Moscow region's New Martyrs and Confessors of the Soviet Yoke were discussed, with Metropolitan Juvenaliy (Poyarkov) of Krutitsy and Kolomna leading the discussion. More here.

New Martyrs of Bessarabia

Moldova's New Galilee Association has compiled research on unglorified Saints and New Martyrs of Bessarabia (a region encompassing modern day Moldova and the Ukraine's Budjak district). The Association's work has already received the encouragement of Metropolitan Vladimir (Cantarean) of Chisinau and the Moldovan Orthodox Church and it is hoped that these Bessarabian Saints and New Martyrs will soon be officially glorified by the Church of Rus' for the veneration of its faithful in Moldova and throughout the world. More here.

"Witness to Life"

An interview with one of the members of the Moscow Patriarchate's Synodal Commission for the Glorification of Saints, Igumen Damascene (Orlovsky), can be found here. The interview was conducted in Russian, but has been translated into English. Most interesting to me was Fr. Damascene's comment that now that the Church of Rus' has glorified the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Soviet Yoke it will never again need to borrow relics from other Local Orthodox Churches for the making of antimens (without which the Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgies cannot be served). It would seem that that would not have been an issue before given how many cathedrals, churches, and monasteries I visited in Russia and Ukraine had not just one, but oftentimes multiple reliquaries containing whole bodies of Saints, but I guess such impressions can be misleading :-).

St. Vladimir the Protomartyr of Kiev

Joyous feast! С праздником! St. Vladimir (Bogoyavlenskiy), Metropolitan of Kiev, was one of the senior hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church of his day and much beloved. Together with Sts. Tikhon (Belavin) of Moscow and Anthony (Khrapovitskiy) of Kiev he was a leading contender for the newly restored patriarchal throne of Rus' during the All-Russian Council of 1917 and 1918. In God's wisdom St. Tikhon became the first restored Patriarch of All Rus', St. Vladimir became the Protomartyr of the Soviet Yoke, and St. Anthony became the founder and First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

Before the All-Russian Council was disbursed by the Bolsheviks they martyred St. Vladimir in 1918 while he was in Kiev. As a result of this the Sunday nearest to his feast is the Sunday of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessor of the Soviet Yoke. More on St. Vladimir's life can be found here. May his blessing and prayers be with us all!

Notes on the Life of St. Seraphim of Sitka

A good review of the life of another relatively unknown American Orthodox saint, St. Seraphim of Sitka and Uglich, can be found here. He was born and educated in Russia, but was tonsured to the little schema and ordained to the priesthood here in North America during his service in Alaska. Like many of our lesser known saints, he later returned to Russia, becoming prominent in the resistance to the Bolsheviks within the hierarchy and being martyred for this.

In the dark times after St. Tikhon's death (the same St. Tikhon who made St. Seraphim a monk and later Bishop of Uglich) his nominated successors were one by one arrested, as were the successors they nominated for themselves. When this happened to St. Seraphim he was asked by the Soviets who he would nominate to lead the Russian Orthodox Church in his absence (so that they could arrest these nominees as well) and he, knowing their plans, commended the Church of Rus' to the care of the Lord Himself, in which I'm sure it remains.

May God save and protect us through the prayers of our Holy Father Seraphim! His blessings and prayers be with us all.

Pictured is St. Seraphim after his consecration to the episcopacy.

Remains of 5,000 Purge Victims Uncovered in Tatarstan

The Russian Orthodox Church's Diocese of Kazan' has called upon the government of the Republic of Tatarstan (a member state of the Russian Federation) to establish a memorial to victims of Stalin's purges at Holy Dormition Monastery in Sviyazhsk following the discovery there of the remains of some 5,000 people killed between the 1920s and the 1940s when the site was used as an NKVD (later KGB) camp. The victims' remains were found during work to restore the monastery, which prior to its return to the Church in 1997 had been used as a mental institution and boarding school for delinquent boys (as well as the above). More here.

St. Eugene of Nizhniy Novgorod

Today is the commemoration of St. Eugene the New Martyr of Nizhniy Novgorod, who served as metropolitan of that city in the 1930s when it was called Gorkiy. I wish I had something about his life to post, but I've only had time to search English-language resources online - the Russian-language stuff will have to wait for later. Joyous feast! May his blessings and prayers be with us all!

Independent Belarus or Soviet Belorussia?

Although it's been nearly twenty years since the collapse of the USSR the Belorussian government continues to harass religious groups and discourage Orthodox Christians' veneration of the New Martyrs of the Soviet Yoke. Unlike Russia, where churches remembering the New Martyrs have been built on multiple sites, in Belarus plans to build a memorial church on the site of a mass grave from Stalin's era have yet to be carried out. The KGB, which has retained its original name in the country, has also attempted to have icons of the New Martyrs removed from churches in Belarus. More on this and the treatment of other religious minorities can be found here.