Martyrs Ancient Church(until Edict of Milan 313)
The story of New Testament martyrdom begins with the gospel account of Christ. It was He, the Founder of all types of Christian exploits, who was the first New Testament Martyr.
“Our Lord,” writes St. Dimitri of Rostov, - having taken on human nature ... passed the ranks of all saints. " And nowhere did He take in humanity the glory that He had with the Father. "Before the world was"(John 17.5), as soon as in the martyrdom. St. Demetrius explains that Christ was a prophet, "for he prophesied about the captivity of Jerusalem and foretold the Last Judgment Day, but was glorified not in the prophetic order"; was also an apostle, for “Passed through the cities and villages, preaching and preaching the Kingdom of God(Luke 8.1) ”, but he was not glorified in the apostolic order; there was a hermit and a fasting person "He was led by the spirit into the desert"(Luke 4.1) he fasted for forty days, "but He was not glorified either in the wilderness or in the fasting order." Christ was a miracle worker, he cast out demons, healed the blind, the lame, the paralytic and raised the dead, "but He does not say that He was glorified in this order." When, after the Last Supper, the Savior was preparing for martyrdom, embarking on this path, only then did He say to the disciples: "Today the Son of Man is glorified." And after suffering on the Cross, appearing after the Resurrection to Luke and Cleopa, the Lord said: "Was it not necessary for Christ to suffer and enter into His glory?"(Luke 24.26). “Look,” exclaims St. Demetrius, - how high was the greatness of the honor of martyrdom, that even Christ Himself, through martyrdom, should have entered His glory. "
The Gospel also contains indications of the nature of persecution: on the one hand, the rejection of Christianity political system of that time, on the other - the rejection of his adherents of Judaism. These reasons, to one degree or another, had all subsequent persecutions: Christians were persecuted either for religious or political reasons.
The first Christian martyrs appeared during the apostolic period. Their deaths were the result of persecution by the Jews, who viewed Christians as a dangerous sect and accused them of blasphemy. During this period, the Roman authorities did not persecute Christians, without distinguishing them from the Jews (Judaism, however, was permissible in Rome - licita - religion).
Persecution by the Jews is mentioned more than once in the book of the Acts of the Apostles. Since 37, the Roman authorities have expanded the rights of King Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great. He got the opportunity to start persecuting Christians in order to gain popularity among the Jews. The victim of this persecution fell apostle. Jacob Zebedee, brother of John the Evangelist. St. ap. Peter, but he was miraculously freed from prison (Acts 12.1-18). It is known that the Jews tried several times to betray Ap. Paul to the judgment of the Roman authorities, however, these authorities refused to condemn the apostle, since they viewed the charges against him as religious disputes within Judaism, in which they did not want to interfere (Acts 18.12-17). Moreover, these authorities did not allow the Jews to kill Ap. Paul during the rebellion in Jerusalem in 58 or 59 (Acts 23.12-29) and sent him, as a Roman citizen, to Rome, to the judgment of Caesar (Acts 26.30-31). In 62, taking advantage of the death of the Roman governor Festus in Judea, the high priest Anan ordered the assassination of St. apostle Jacob the Righteous, brother of the Lord, the first bishop of the Jerusalem Church. Anan demanded that Jacob, from the roof of the Jerusalem temple, recognize Christianity as a delusion. But Jacob made a confession of faith, for which he was thrown from the roof and stoned to death. For this unauthorized act, King Agrippa deprived Anan of the high priesthood. All this testifies to the fact that at first the Roman authorities even tried to somehow restrain the persecutors.
The persecution of Christians by the Roman state dates back to the time of the emperor Nero (54–68). In the history of these persecutions, three periods are distinguished_
By the first period include the persecution under Nero in 64 and the persecution under Domitian (81–96). The persecution under Nero was short-lived and did not cover all areas of the Roman Empire. But it entered the history of the Church as one of the most terrible, apparently due to its suddenness and unpreparedness of Christians. Among the martyrs of this persecution are the holy apostles Peter and Paul. But during this period, the Roman government still does not consider Christianity as a special religion hostile to it. Under Nero, Christians were persecuted, blamed for the Roman fire. Under Domitian, they are persecuted as Jews who do not declare their Judaism and refuse to pay the "Jewish tax". According to church history Eusebius, among the many martyrs of this persecution stands out Clement, consular wife Flavius, who was burned for her faith in 95. By this time Tradition also relates the link to Fr. Patmos St. apostle John the Evangelist.
The spread of Christianity in different layers Roman society (far beyond the Jewish community) makes the Roman authorities realize that they are dealing with a special religion, hostile, in their views, like the Roman state structure and the traditional cultural values of Roman society. From that time on, the persecution of Christians as a religious community begins.
The most important document for this second period persecution is the well-known correspondence of the Roman governor in Bithynia Pliny the Younger with the emperor Trajan (98-117). Trajan writes about the legitimacy of the persecution of Christians "for the very name", that is, for one belonging to the Christian community. However, the emperor points out that there is no need to “seek out” Christians, they are subject to trial and execution only when someone brings charges against them. Trajan also writes that "those who deny that they are Christians and prove it in practice, that is, pray to our gods, should be pardoned for repentance, even if in the past they were under suspicion." On these principles - with one or another deviation - the persecution of Christians in the second period was based.
Under Trajan, among many, they underwent martyrdom St. Clement, Pope, St. Ignatius the God-bearer, her. Antioch (107 or 116) and her. Jerusalem Simeon, The 120-year-old elder, son of Cleopa, successor in the cathedra of St. ap. James the Righteous (about 109).
About 137 years under Emperor Hadrian (117–138) young maidens suffered Faith Hope and Love. Their mother, martyr Sofia, she was present at the torture, strengthened her daughters in heroism and patience to death. The emperor allowed Sophia to take the bodies of her daughters, wishing to prolong her mental anguish. Saint Sophia honorably buried the bodies of her children, sat at their grave for three days, and then died there from the endured heartache.
The second period of persecution is the martyrdom of saints like her. Polycarp of Smirnsky († about 156) and Justin the Philosopher († about 165). The renowned church historian Eusebius reports that during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180) there were severe persecutions in Lyon and Vienne. You can read more about them in the appendix to this section of the course.
Under Emperor Septimius Severus (196-211), St. Irenaeus, her. Lyons (202). The martyrs were especially remarkable for their courage Carthage region, where the persecution was greater than in other places. Thus, a young mother of noble birth Thebia Perpetua (commemorated February 1), despite the pleas of her father and love for the child, she declared herself Christian and died in the circus from hungry animals. The same fate befell her slave Felicity, giving birth in dungeon, and her husband Revokata( 1-202).
The periods of persecution were followed by comparatively calm times. On the eve of the third period of persecution, the Church lived for about thirty years almost without persecution. Over the years, Christianity spread so widely throughout the Roman Empire that there was a large community in virtually every city. The new faith was accepted by rich and noble citizens, the masses became less hostile to it, some emperors were even supportive of Christianity. Nevertheless, there were forces in the empire that wanted to decisively destroy it.
Obviously, outbreaks of persecution were caused not only by political reasons... The Hieromartyr Cyprian of Carthage, who lived at that time, explains that the onset of persecution after the world is not accidental; the persecution has a spiritual cause and a spiritual goal. The judgments of this saint are especially valuable for us, since he himself crowned his life as a martyr.
“The Lord wanted to test His family,” writes the holy martyr Cyprian, “and since the long-lasting peace damaged the teachings given to us from Above, the heavenly Providence itself restored the lying and, so to speak, almost dormant faith.” According to him, during that calm period, the morality of Christians was significantly damaged: everyone began to take care of increasing their property, "forgetting about how the believers acted under the apostles and how they should always act." “There was no noticeable in the priests of sincere piety, in the ministers - pure faith, in deeds - mercy, in morals - deanery. Men disfigured their beards, women blushed their faces ... They enter into marital alliances with infidels ... They despise the primates of the Church with proud arrogance, slander each other with poisonous lips, produce mutual strife with stubborn hatred ... ”. “Why did we not deserve to endure for such sins, when even before, in our warning, the following Divine definition was expressed: if they forsake My law and do not go into My destinies; If they defile My justification, and keep my commandments not: I will visit their iniquity with the rod, and with the wounds of their iniquity.(Ps. 88.31-33)? " - asks the martyr. And he continues: "We ... despising the command of the Lord, made our sins that more cruel means were required to correct the transgression and for the Divine test."
Third period persecution begins with the reign of the emperor Decius (249–251) and continues until the Edict of Milan 313. The edict issued by Decius changes the legal formula for the persecution of Christians. The persecution of Christians was now imputed to government officials, that is, it was not the result of the initiative of a private prosecutor, but state policy. The purpose of the persecutions, however, was not so much the execution of Christians as forcing them to renounce. For this, sophisticated torture was used, but those who survived were not always executed. Therefore, the persecutions of this period, along with the martyrs, give many confessors.
At the same time, whole groups of so-called fallen away. Their appearance was a natural consequence of the impoverishment of faith, about which the schmch wrote. Cyprian. According to the form of renunciation, those who fell away were divided into several groups: those who sacrificed smoking to the image of the emperor; buyers of false evidence that they made a sacrifice; who gave false testimony in the protocols.
Saint Cyprian describes how easily some members of the Church renounced the faith. “They didn’t even wait to go at least, then, when they are captured; renounce when asked. Many ... did not even leave for themselves a visible excuse that they were forced to sacrifice to idols. Willingly (yourself. - E. N.) they are running ... as if they are glad of the presented occasion ... How many rulers did there a respite because of the coming evening and how many even asked not to postpone their destruction! "... For many, their own destruction was not enough ..."<они>mutually offered each other to drink death from the deadly vessel. Moreover, for the perfect completeness of the crime, even babies brought or attracted by the hands of their parents ... lost what they received shortly after their birth ... And alas! There is no just and correct reason that would justify such a crime. "
This picture of numerous denials further emphasizes the greatness of the feat of those who, not fearing death, remained faithful to Christ. In the third period, primarily the primates of the Churches were persecuted. Then the schmch suffered. Cyprian of Carthage (258), dad Sixtus Roman with deacon Lawrence (261), Bishop of Thyatira Carp, Bishop Babylon of Antioch, Bishop of Alexandria Alexander. The feat of St. mch. Tryphon.
Persecution, as before, alternated with times of almost complete tolerance. For example, the edict of Emperor Gallen (260-268) granted the primates of the Churches free to engage in religious activities.
The most severe persecutions of the third period occurred at the end of the reign of Diocletian (284-305) and subsequent years.
These persecutions began with the army. In 298, a decree was issued ordering all troops to make sacrifices. As a result, a mass exodus of Christians began from military service... In Tingis (Africa) warrior Marcellus, when it came to his turn to offer the sacrifice, he threw off his weapon and refused to serve the emperor. He was executed. Diocletian's co-ruler Maximian ordered the extermination of a whole legion of soldiers who refused to make sacrifices. This is the so-called Thebaid (Theban -) legion, headed by St. Martium ... (According to other sources, among the commanders of this legion in the first place is named St. Mauritius). See Appendix to Topic 3.
In the years 303-304. a number of edicts are issued depriving Christians of all civil rights, prescribing to imprison all representatives of the clergy and demand from them to renounce Christianity through the offering of sacrifices. The last edict of 304 ordered all Christians in general to be compelled to make sacrifices everywhere, seeking this by any torture.
Martyrdom during these years was massive, but in different provinces persecution was carried out with different intensity. The most severe persecutions were in the east of the empire. So, in Nicomedia (Asia Minor) on the feast of the Nativity of Christ 303, Maximian ordered to burn up to 20 thousand Christians (commemorated Nicomedian martyrs December 28th). The exceptions were Britain, Gaul and Spain, which were ruled by Caesar Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine the Great, who favored Christians. The feat of the holy martyrs belongs to the period of the persecution of Maximian Adriana and Natalia. Adrian was martyred in Nicomedia of Vifinskaya in front of his wife. After the execution of her husband, Natalya died, exhausted by mental suffering.
Persecution by the Roman authorities ceased after the publication of an edict in 311, in which Christianity was recognized as a permissible religion, and in full measure after the Milan edict of 313, which proclaimed complete religious tolerance.
"Scientific and theological understanding of martyrdom, confession and massive repression».
If the world hates you, know
that he hated me before you (John 15:18)
These words of our Lord and Savior were spoken to all Christians who have lived, live and will live until the end of the century. At the same time, the history of the Church proves to us that the hatred of which Christ speaks especially multiplied and grew into persecution not always and not in every country. I will touch on both history and contemporary issues related to the phenomenon of martyrdom for Christ and faith in Him. I hope that this will allow us to jointly outline the problems of this conference.
Persecution was almost universal at the dawn of Christianity - in the Ancient Church. It was very difficult for the pagan world, accustomed to be guided by material categories, to accept the teachings of Christ, passing it through the soul and reconciling it with the peculiarities of the culture, mentality, and upbringing of that time. How can you, for example, love and forgive your enemy? For ancient man, especially a warrior, is an unacceptable thought. Countries and peoples were in constant war: both with external enemies, and within the state - all the more so colossal as the Roman Empire was. How can you forgive endlessly? After all, there is a court with a well-developed Roman law. The ideas of the Divine Teacher perplexed many, and it very often grew into hatred, anger towards those who were able to accommodate New Testament... These were originally a minority, and many of them became martyrs, persecuted.
In most European languages, the word "martyr" sounds like martyr (from μάρτυς, witness). The etymological intersection of the words "martyr" and "witness" is highly symbolic. He who endured suffering, but not just like that, by coincidence of life circumstances, but for true faith, for faith in Christ, most often with the name of the Savior on his lips or with a prayer to Him, is truly a witness. Witness of what?
First, their faith, which is supported not only by verbal confession, not only by some ordinary, everyday action, but also by the willingness to give up the most valuable thing for this faith - life.
Secondly, the proof of the correctness of the Savior's words that The church cannot be overcome by the gates of hell(cf. Matthew 16:18).
Third, an earthly proof of the idea of endless life: the names of the ancient martyrs were composed by the first martyrologues, and the believers of the Ancient Church did not forget their sufferers, although the possibilities of recording their exploits were very limited. The raids by the persecutors, the need to maintain strict confidentiality - all this was a sign of the life of the ancient martyrs with whom our Russian Church will face in the 20th century.
It is paradoxical for the pagan worldview: the struggle against the Christians of the Ancient Church led not to the destruction of the followers of the Savior, but to their increase. At the same time, of course, there was resistance on the part of Christians, but his method was word, conviction and spiritual life. "Truth is raised not by swords and arrows, not by means of military detachments, but by conviction and advice," wrote St. Athanasius of Alexandria (History of the Arians. Ch. 33). This happened in the entire subsequent history of Christianity.
When atrocities occurred somewhere in the name of the Church, their implementation did not belong to the Church and did not come from the Church. I am not talking about the events in the medieval West, about the fires of the Inquisition. Let's remember the terrible era of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. He, as a crowned Christian king, used ecclesiastical, Christian symbols and rhetoric. And it so happened that the atrocities of his time were not always committed under the cover of a broomstick and a dog's head, namely under the shadow of the Holy Cross, sacred for every Orthodox sign. Many people were then subjected to terrible tortures, remaining faithful to Christ and the Church.
Such was Saint Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow, Hieromartyr of the era of John the Terrible. Outwardly, the reasons for his torment were different from the torment of Christians in the ancient Church. A ruler who called himself Christian rebelled against him. However, in reality it was the same hatred that the Savior warned His followers and disciples about. With this hatred and malice the tsar rose up against the saint for the truth to which the martyr of the Church testified.
The era of the tsar-tormentor is fundamentally different from the earlier time of our history, when, on the contrary, the rulers became martyrs. And indeed, in our country, borrowed from Byzantium along with itself Orthodox Christianity the model of interaction between the Church and the state received a special treatment. Probably, in few places in the early stages of the Christian history of a nation, state, culture, there was such a deep introduction of Christian ideas into the essence of state governance.
And it's not only about the Grand Duke Vladimir, who was radically transformed after his baptism, who managed to change his own moral image and the system of governing the country, the system of social structure and the distribution of material wealth in it. Suffice it to recall the meek princes-martyrs Boris and Gleb, or those who perished in the Horde, who refused to abandon the Christian faith, Grand Duke Mikhail Yaroslavich of Tver, Grand Duke Mikhail Vsevolodovich of Chernigov and his boyar Theodore.
What happened? Why do we see such a cardinal difference between the faithful rulers and the persecutors of the truth of Christ? Of course, there is a lack of love and faithfulness to Christ. People missed them so much in the era before the Time of Troubles. And if the impoverishment of love in Christian states leads to bloody tragedies as it happened in Russia in the era of the Terrible Tsar and later, in the era of the new martyrs, a threat to Christianity of a different kind is being formed in the West.
In modern times, freedom begins to be understood by thinkers, and after them by a wide circle of people, in a completely different way, not in the way it is understood in Christian teaching. This is no longer freedom of moral choice, with the ideal consisting in the observance of clear and unambiguous moral norms, the adherence to which has repeatedly led in history to the emergence of martyrs. This is a falsely understood freedom - permissiveness, which today is a great threat to Christianity. It does not, at least not yet, lead to martyrdom. This, one might say, soft violence against morality does not yet force the faithful to Christ to give their lives for Him in an obvious way. But who knows what orders will be established in a few decades by children who now grow up in same-sex families and whose consciousness is formed under the influence of a very peculiar ethics? We, apparently, do not have an answer to this question, but in order to avoid tragedies in the future, we need to firmly defend Christian ideas about the norms of the family today.
It should also be said that for many centuries there has been a threat to Christianity from the East as well. Radical Islamists are today a real threat to Christianity. Even in our country, thousands of fellow citizens, many honest, believing Orthodox Christians, and not only Christians, are exposed to this threat today. This week there was a terrible explosion in a Volgograd bus that claimed several lives and endangered dozens more. The suicide bomber, infected with antihuman ideas, not only gave her life for these ideas, but also sought to take lives with her as much as possible more innocent people. It is paradoxical that the Arabic word "shahid" means the same as the Greek "martis" - witness. But what do people like the Volgograd terrorist testify to? About a complete distortion of religious consciousness, about a perverted religiosity that has nothing to do with true religiosity. It is not the face of God that appears through the human features of the suicide bombers, covered by the hijab, but the beastly grin of the devil.
We are convinced of this by the events that are currently taking place in the Near and Middle East. In recent years, something terrible has happened there and has not so many analogues in world history. After the Iraqi war, about one tenth of the former number of Christians in Iraq remained to live in this country. Many died as martyrs, others were expelled from their homes, deprived of their homes and property.
Tragic events, including those associated with torture in the name of Christ, are now taking place in Syria, where militants deliberately shoot pregnant women and children in front of their mothers, destroy and kidnap Christians.
Can anger be stopped by force of arms, air raids or chemical spraying? The living experience of the Christian Church suggests that this is impossible. Malice stops only by the power of the Word of God, only by perseverance in true faith. We see this on the example of the Christians of the Roman Empire, who forced the Caesars to legalize Christianity by adopting the Edict of Milan exactly 1700 years ago, and on the example of our Fatherland, which suffered from an attempt by force to put into practice the false and obviously unrealizable - to equalize everyone, to achieve an unprecedented scale of material production with full neglect of spiritual life.
In our country, in our era, it would seem, outwardly calm, we also have to affirm the Word of God, based on the living experience of the Church. That is why it is necessary to speak again and again about the feat of the new martyrs. outside world, at the same time continuing the scientific and theological reflection of this feat within the Church.
It is important to note the originality and exclusivity of the feat of the new martyrs. Although all holiness goes back to one source - the Savior, but, as we see in the historical examples cited, at different times we meet this holiness in different forms and manifestations.
Unfortunately, so far we have not accumulated enough theological and ideological material that would fully reveal the feat of the new martyrs, show its uniqueness. And it is quite clear that in the matter of glorifying the new martyrs we are at the beginning of the path. I believe this can be asserted today, despite the fact that the number of newly glorified saints in our Church is unprecedented and has no analogues in history. But the number of sacrifices among the faithful children of the Church in the epoch of the latest persecutions is tens and hundreds of times greater than the number of canonized new martyrs by name. Even far from complete databases - modern lists of martyrs, for example, a database - include tens of thousands of names, and hundreds of thousands, millions have suffered.
In this regard, it should be said that the complete picture of martyrdom in the name of Christ differs from the partial one, which has already been explicitly witnessed by the Church. Not all of God's plans become immediately known to us. The martyrologies written in the book of heaven differ from our earthly martyrologies.
The newest era of world wars, industrial and post-industrial times revealed many such victims that, unlike the ancient martyrs, they did not have a choice: to abandon God or not. Such is the family of the last Russian emperor, whom none of the persecutors proposed to renounce Christ, but it was precisely in the lack of alternatives of suffering for Him that our Church saw a feat worthy of glorification. Such are the hundreds of well-known and nameless victims of mass repressions both in our country and in other countries of the world. Of course, not all victims of misanthropic ideologies are martyrs. It is difficult to call an innocent sufferer and ascetic one who, shortly before falling into the repressive moloch, was himself a persecutor and did not repent until last day in their deeds, being confident in the righteousness of their deeds.
All of the above leads to the question of the criteria for the canonization of holy martyrs and confessors. Do not the previously formulated criteria limit us too much in our veneration of the new martyrs? Is it not too narrow and categorical we approach the assessment of the actions of people who were in the most severe conditions of totalitarian terror?
During the mass canonizations in our Church, since 1989, and especially since 2000, more than a thousand new martyrs and confessors have been canonized. Over the years, the diocesan commissions for canonization have prepared much more materials for canonizations. But it seems that we still have to learn to look at the issue of the glorification of saints from a broad theological standpoint, from the point of view of peculiarities. historical era and also from the point of view of the conciliar intuition of the Church.
Ancient martyrs often underwent "baptism in blood", which is why sometimes in the calendar you can see the names of those who persecuted Christians for a significant part of their lives. It is characteristic that the glorification of martyrs in the Ancient Church did not at all know such a formalized procedure as modern canonization. By the way, the very concept of canonization came into our theological language only in the 19th century from the everyday life of the Catholic Church. It began to be used as a synonym for what was called "canonization" in the language of the Holy Fathers. And although this word successfully fits the current established church practice, it would hardly be applicable to the practice of the Ancient Church, since the liturgical practice itself declared martyrs saints, without any formalities. Rather, they cared about preserving the memory of the feat of faith that they had accomplished, than meticulously checking their previous life. This practice, of course, was associated with a public character. litigation over Christians in the Roman Empire, so that they were executed openly, and their brothers in faith usually became direct witnesses of their last "agon", their single combat with the "spirit of malice", their feat. This practice also reflected the purity of early Christianity, when the followers of the Savior, even those who had the successive grace of apostolic ordination, did not dare to administer an earthly judgment over the sufferers for Christ. They did not make judgments about their life, but remembered their feat, accomplished in the name of the Lord in their last hour.
Later, in the Middle Ages, a complex system of glorification of saints developed, which presupposed a thorough study of the life of the holy ascetic, and put forward four obligatory criteria. Impeccable faith, popular veneration, miracles, and even the presence of incorruptible relics - this is what became required in order to recognize an ascetic of piety as a saint. Obviously, the last three criteria are not met in relation to many of the glorified new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church. Many new saints are not widely venerated by the people, many did not show miracles recorded by people and the conciliar mind of the Church, and we do not have the relics of most of the canonized new martyrs. Does this mean that it is necessary to abandon further canonizations? Of course not.
Moreover, even more rigid principles have been formulated. For example, a person submitted for canonization did not have to confess to anything: neither to confirm his “guilt” (for example, in the counter-revolution), nor to tell about the “guilt” of others. According to these criteria, we, for example, have not canonized some confessors of the faith. It would seem that we have no reason to doubt that they suffered for Christ, but they are not glorified.
In this regard, the question arises: how much can we trust the documents, the signatures of which were obtained from the people of our Church under torture, in a semi-swoon, or was it just someone else who signed for them? I believe that this issue - about the criteria for canonization in such difficult cases - requires a genuine conciliar discussion, with the involvement of a wide expert community, which is now also within our Church. These are our learned theologians, church historians and canonists.
It should be said that the ancient practice is not fully applicable in the realities of our time. The new persecutions not only surpassed in their scale the persecution of Christians in the ancient world. The most sophisticated methods of reprisals, deception and falsifications were developed. Unlike the Roman executioners, specialists from the Lubyanka, such as Tuchkov, knew perfectly well the teachings and practices of the Church. And from the very beginning of the persecution, one of the tasks of the repressive organs was to prevent the glorification of new saints. The true fates of the confessors of the faith were unknown to their contemporaries. Their interrogations took place in dungeons. The investigation materials were often falsified. The trial - if it can be called a trial at all - took place for closed doors... Their executions were carried out in secret. The bodies were destroyed or dumped into mass graves, like the ditches of the Butovo training ground, the Levashov wasteland, the Sandarmokh tract.
Hiding the true motives of their repressive policy, the persecutors passed sentences to the clergy on political charges, accusing their victims of "counter-revolutionary activities." In the midst of the mass repressions of 1937-1938, no one seemed to be forced to renounce faith in God. Outwardly, this is very different from the fate of the martyrs of the Ancient Church. However, only at first glance. We understand that the people of the Church, especially the clergy, who had not removed their cross by 1937, who had often already gone through arrests, prisons and camps, knew what lay ahead. Arrest and execution only completed their daily confessional feat. That is why there is not enough evidence of the investigative cases of the martyrs. Oral evidence is needed, of which a lot has been collected over the last quarter of a century, but other documents of the era are also needed. Many of them are still classified. Only the complete opening of the archives of the era of persecution will allow us to remove the numerous questions that exist about whether or not the canonization of this or that person who suffered during the era of persecution is possible.
It is obvious that the glorification of the host of new martyrs of the Russian Church is a complex process that requires a new understanding of the entire experience of the Church of Christ. This also applies to the very process of canonization, the criteria of which have not yet finally become, in fact, the subject of scientific and theological analysis and, I am sure, will be modified. Therefore, certain decisions related to canonization are not always clear for the people of the Church.
When the criteria are not obvious, a lot of misunderstandings arise, but most importantly, the lack of a clear understanding prevents the further glorification of the feat of the new martyrs. The appearance of the name of a new saint in the church calendar is the beginning, but not the end of the glorification. It is necessary that the new martyrs occupy the same place in the life of the modern Church as the martyrs of the Ancient Church occupied in the life of the early Christian community. For this it is necessary to use all forms of church culture and modern hagiography, and liturgical veneration, and cinema, and museum activities. It is important to collect and preserve oral history and memoirs about the ascetics themselves and their era. Need to publish archival documents because without these modern “acts of martyrdom,” even if they hurt someone’s interests, we will not be able to show the young people coming to the Church the terrible context of the feat of the new martyrs.
At the last Council of Bishops, it was decided to abandon the widespread naming of the new martyrs only by their names in the calendar. Their names are also sanctified by their feat. Many modern icon painters apply the names of the new martyrs to the icon. All this, coupled with new studies of the biographies of the new martyrs, the publication of documents about their lives and sufferings, makes it possible to move on to truly perpetuating their memory. The supreme ecclesiastical authority tells us about the need for such perpetuation. So, this is stated in the decisions of the Council of Bishops in 2011. It is no accident that the creation of the Church-Public Council for the perpetuation of the memory of the new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church. These priorities, clearly outlined by the Council and His Holiness the Patriarch Cyril, make us think about the still very weak influence in our society of the church voice telling about the feat of the martyrs.
If this voice sounded in full force and was heard, it is unlikely that the glorifications of the executioners and organizers of the persecution of the Church and the people of God would sound again and again from the TV channels, from the official tribunes and the media.
Those who now call for the veneration of Lenin and Stalin, the initiators of the restoration of the monument to Dzerzhinsky, thereby trample the unknown graves of the new martyrs, confessors of the Russian Church and hundreds of thousands of innocently murdered fellow citizens of our country.
25 million rubles have been allocated for the restoration of the monument to Dzerzhinsky, and at the same time we do not have monuments to the great saints - martyrs and confessors of the 20th century - saints, Saints Cyril of Kazan, Peter Krutitsky, Agafangel of Yaroslavl. Why am I talking about monuments and not about church perpetuation?
The fact is that the saints I have mentioned, dozens of other saints of God, thousands of shepherds and millions of faithful to the Church who suffered in the name of Christ in the era of persecution, deserve not only that churches be dedicated to them, services are compiled, icons painted, but this is already happening. everywhere, in this direction, our Church is doing a great job. But we should not forget that their memory is also worthy of civil veneration. If in our history there were no Lenin, Dzerzhinsky and other villains like them, the population of our country would now be two or three times larger and would not have had the spiritual trauma inflicted then and affecting to this day. But if we didn’t have Saint Tikhon, Saint Peter, Saint Cyril, Saint Agathangel, their colleagues and co-workers, many other sufferers for the faith, finally, I’m not sure that there would be such a country as Russia.
The country would not have survived on any might of tanks, or on the severity of collective farm and factory orders, or on the Mauser of the NKVD employees, if the faith that our Russian Church was confirmed in it and supported even in the most fierce time of godlessness! There would be no Russia today, there would be no us today.
Therefore, I am sure that our society needs to determine its priorities and impose a taboo on the glorification of villains and at the same time - on the concealment and justification of their crimes. The time has finally come to call everything that was accomplished during the hard times by its proper names, especially since there are fewer and fewer direct witnesses to those events.
From this point of view, it is important for us to preserve as places of memory - burial places of victims of mass political repressions. The Russian Church has already taken some of them under its patronage, at one of these places - the Butovo training ground near Moscow - a church-public memorial has already been created. It is necessary that young people visit such places so that we find everything for ourselves new point countdown in the exploit of the new martyrs who suffered there.
It is not clear what is preventing not only new churches, but also avenues, streets, parks from being named in honor of the new martyrs - these kind, honest, humble and worthy people. It is in our hands today to make sure that their feat really becomes a living experience, an experience not only of the Church, but also of our Fatherland.
The church has developed iconography, but why is their feat so little reflected in civil painting, in cinema? How much money is invested in the creation of the same type of melodramatic series. And the experience of the new martyrs is almost not reflected in the filmography.
New martyrs are not so attractive to modern society as stars and fashion idols, or as hero-fighters of the communist era for that time. Martyrs are generally different from heroes: they are ready to give their lives for their faith, and not to take other people's lives.
The cult of the martyr is not a cult of power, it is the worship of love and purity of conviction, just as Christianity is the triumph of Divine love.
I am sure that by speaking about martyrs, we are affirming Christianity. Therefore, the conference that has now gathered - not only in the place of its holding, organizers, participants - is a church conference, but, first of all, in terms of the content of the topics that will be disclosed at it.
I would like to wish all the forum participants who have gathered in this hall fruitful labors.
DECR Communication Service / Patriarchy.ru
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The first martyrs for Christ can be considered about two thousand Bethlehem babies killed at the behest of the King of Judah Herod. When Jesus Christ was born, they came to Judea, which was a revelation about the birth of the Messiah. They came to King Herod and told about it, asking King Christ. Herod thought that Jesus would be the kind of king who would overthrow the current ruler from the throne. He found out from the Magi about where Christ should be born. Having received information about the city of Bethlehem, Herod, out of his anger and fear, sent soldiers there with the aim of killing all babies up to one year old who were born at the approximate time of the Savior's birth. Thus, many mothers lost their children. However, Christ remained alive, as the wise men told about the king's intention. The Mother of God, the elder Joseph and the baby Jesus fled to Egypt.
First Martyr Archdeacon Stephen
Among the first Christian martyrs, the Church mentions the holy archdeacon Stephen who suffered for his faith in Christ as God. The book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles, written by Luke, tells of the death of the saint. He was stoned by the teachers of the law for his faith in Christ. A certain Saul took part in the murder of the saint, who then himself converted to Christ and became known to the whole world under the name of the Holy Supreme Apostle Paul. The archdeacon was killed in about the fourth decade after Christ. The Orthodox Church celebrates his memory on January 9th. The saint himself was also one of the 70 apostles of Jesus Christ. He preached in Jerusalem, for which he was condemned by the Jewish Sanhedrin.
The book of Doctor of Church Law, Professor, Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin tells about the history of ancient Orthodoxy - from the birth of the Savior to the founding of New Rome - the Orthodox Byzantine Empire by Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine.
We bring to the attention of our readers an excerpt from the sketch
"Persecution of Christians and exploits of martyrs during the reign of the Antonine dynasty":
Church tradition counts 10 persecutions: Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Maximinus, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian and Diocletian, - which are likened to 10 Egyptian executions and 10 horns of the apocalyptic beast, but in their calculation there is some convention. If the list of emperors-persecutors includes only those who unleashed campaigns of persecution of Christians that covered the entire empire, then their number will have to be reduced, and if we also take into account regional, local persecutions, then Commodus, Caracalla, Septimius Sever will also have to be included in the black list of the enemies of the Church. and other princeps.
Inexplicable from the point of view of common historical sense, or, better to say, immanent political logic, the failure of the religious policy of the powerful superpower of the Ancient World, which crushed hundreds of peoples and tribes trying to defend their independence, is a fact of the greatest historical importance and one of the most striking historical lessons. Experience after experience of persecuting Christians gave the opposite effect, led immediately or soon to results, the opposite, on whom the persecutors counted, sometimes distinguished by an exceptional political gift and even genius, like Trajan or Diocletian, who stood at the pinnacle of human intellectual capabilities, like Marcus Aurelius. Their efforts were in vain; to stop the spread of the Church, which they saw as an ailment mortally dangerous for the republic, for public good, they couldn't. For the Christian consciousness, for the Christian perception historical events behind all this was revealed the action of the Providence of God, the fulfillment of the Savior's promise: let us build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matthew 16, 18).
The Greek word "martis" itself does not contain an indication of torment, which served as the basis for its translation into the Slavic and Russian languages - "martyr". It actually means "witness", translated into Arabic - "shahid". In the Western Romance and Germanic languages, this word entered without translation, but in the very perception of it, the accent, as in Russian, began to be made on enduring torture and torment. But as V.V. Bolotov wrote, “the word 'martyr', which is translated among the Slavs from the Greek 'martis' - witness, conveys only a secondary feature of the fact, as a response of direct human feeling to the narrative of those terrible sufferings that the martyres endured ... In history About the martyrs, we, separated from the beginning of Christianity by many centuries, are struck first of all by the tortures to which they were subjected. But for contemporaries familiar with Roman judicial practice, these tortures were a common occurrence ... Torture at the Roman court was an ordinary legal means of inquiry. In addition, the nerves of a Roman man, accustomed to being excited by bloody spectacles in amphitheatres, were so dulled that a person's life was little appreciated. So, for example, the testimony of a slave, according to Roman law, only then mattered at trial, if it was given under torture, and slave witnesses were tortured ... kind of courts had legal right use torture in abundance. "
For the ancients, the Christian martyr was primarily not a victim, but a witness of faith, a hero of faith, a victor. Simply put, people who watched his struggle and the victory he won, which was revealed in the fact that the executioners were powerless to force him to renounce Christ, became convinced that a Christian who had endured torture and suffered a voluntary death possessed a value that was higher than anything on earth. because the most undoubted earthly value of a person is his life, and if a Christian sacrifices it, then he does it for the good that transcends temporary life. In the perception of some spectators of tortures and executions, the faith of Christians sacrificing their lives was a manifestation of the unreasonable superstition of stubborn people who were in captivity of illusions, but for others, the feat of the martyr they observed became the initial impulse of an internal upheaval, the beginning of a reassessment of former values, a call to conversion. And, as we know from the lives of the ancient martyrs, sometimes such a transformation of the soul was accomplished with a stunning speed, so that even the judges who sentenced Christians to death and the executioners, who were already ready to start their craft, amazed at the faithfulness and staunchness of a Christian condemned to death, themselves loudly confessed Christ and by blood testified of their adherence to their newly acquired faith in Him. Through martyrdom, Christians were united with Christ, and they not only found the joy of communion with Him behind the grave, but also anticipated already here, in the very sufferings for Him.
The Savior's Nativity
Crucifixion and Resurrection of the Savior
Church in the Apostolic Age
Sacred books Of the New Testament
Destruction of the Jerusalem Temple
The history of the church from the destruction of the Jerusalem temple to the end of the 1st century A.D.
Persecution of Christians and exploits of martyrs during the reign of the Antonine dynasty
The Scriptures of the Apostolic and Apologists of the 1st Century
Christian mission in the provinces of the Roman Empire
Church structure and worship in the 2nd century
Disputes about the timing of the celebration of Easter
II century heresies and opposition to them
The position of the Church in the first half of the 3rd century
Church structure and church life in the 3rd century
Manichaeism and monarchian heresies
Christian theologians of the 3rd century
Persecution of Christians by Emperors Decius and Valerian
Church in the last decades of the 3rd century
The beginning of monasticism
Christianity in Armenia
Diocletian's persecution
The rivalry of the rulers of the empire and the rise of Saint Constantine
Persecution of Galerius and Maximinus
Edict of Galerius and the end of the persecution
Conversion of Emperor Constantine and his victory over Maxentius
Edict of Milan 313
Persecution of Licinius and His Defeat in Confrontation with Saint Constantine
Christ warned His disciples: If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too(Jn 15:20). Beginning with the first Christian martyr, Deacon Stephen, a person who suffered for Christ was perceived by the Church as an imitator of the Savior's sacrifice on the cross. At first, the disciples of Christ in Jerusalem were persecuted by the rulers of the Jews. In the pagan regions of the Roman Empire, Christians were also subjected to oppression, although state persecution had not yet occurred. The Apostle Paul, himself more than once endured both imprisonment and beatings, wrote to the Christians of the Macedonian city of Philip: you have been given for Christ's sake not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him(Phil 1, 29). To another Macedonian Church he wrote (52-53): you, brethren, have become imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus, which are in Judea, because you too have endured the same from your fellow tribesmen as those from the Jews(Thess 2:14).
Persecution of the Church in the Roman Empire
The persecution of Christians by the state, monstrous in its cruelty, began in Rome in 64 under the emperor Nero... During this persecution, the apostles Paul and Peter and many other martyrs were executed. After the death of Nero in 68, the persecution of Christians temporarily ceased, but resumed under the emperors Domitian (81-96), and with particular force - under Trajan (98-117). Under Domitian, the Apostle John the Theologian was tortured, but he miraculously survived. The Evangelist John, the only one of Christ's apostles, did not accept a martyr's death and died at a ripe old age. Saint John the Theologian's disciple suffered under the emperor Trajan Ignatius the God-bearer... He was the bishop of Antioch and was sentenced to death by the claws and teeth of wild beasts in the arena. When the soldiers took him to Rome for execution, he wrote to the Roman Christians, asking them not to seek his release: “I beg you: do not show me untimely love. Leave me to be the food of beasts and through them reach God. I am the wheat of God: let the teeth of beasts grind me down, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ. "
The persecution continued. Emperor Hadrian (117-138) took steps to curb the mob's fury against Christians. The accused were to be tried and punished only on admission of guilt. But even under him and his successors, many Christians suffered. Under him, three girls were tortured, named after the main Christian virtues: Faith Hope Love. Vera, the eldest of them, was twelve years old, Nadezhda was ten, and Lyubov was nine. Their mother Sophia died three days later at their grave and was also glorified as a martyr.
Christians were hated by the crowd for shunning and avoiding pagan festivals, but gathered in secret. Those outside the Church were not admitted to Christian services, and the pagans suspected that monstrous crimes were being committed at these meetings. Slander against Christians was passed on by word of mouth. Christians who did not worship their native pagan deities seemed to the people to be real atheists, and the pagan state saw Christians as dangerous rebels. In the Roman Empire, they calmly treated various and often exotic beliefs and cults, but at the same time, no matter what religion a person belonged to, it was required, according to domestic regulations, to honor the Roman gods, especially the emperor himself, who was deified. For Christians, it was unthinkable, worshiping the Creator of heaven and earth, to give divine honor to creation. Some Christian writers have addressed emperors since apologies(which means "justification"), letters in defense of the teachings of Christ. The most famous Christian apologist was the martyr Justin the Philosopher, suffered in 165, during the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius.
In the first half of the 3rd century, the persecution of the Church eased somewhat, until the emperor began persecution of Christians in 250 Decius... His persecutions were distinguished by their particular systematic nature and exceptional scope. All citizens of the Roman Empire were obliged to make sacrifices to idols and thereby attest to their trustworthiness for the state. Christians who refused to participate in these rites were coerced into them with sophisticated torture. Those who had brought sacrifice to idols were released, they were issued a special certificate. Christians have grown out of the habit of persecution over the long years of the world. During the reign of Decius, many people, unable to withstand the persecution, denied Christ and brought the required sacrifices. Some rich Christians, using their connections and their influence, bought the required certificates, but did not make sacrifices themselves. At this time suffered Bishop Fabian of Rome, Bishop Babylon of Antioch, Bishop Alexander of Jerusalem.
At the end of 251, during the war with the Goths, Decius was killed. In 258, a new imperial decree followed, directed against the church hierarchs. This year they accepted the martyrdom of the saint. Pope Sixtus, with four deacons and a saint Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage.
From 260 to the beginning of the 4th century, there was a break in the systematic persecution of Christians. The number of Christians in the empire grew steadily. But this temporary peace for the Church was interrupted in 303. The persecution of Christians began, which went down in history as Great persecution. It was started by the emperor Diocletian and his co-rulers, and it continued by his successors until 313. These ten years gave the Church many martyrs, among whom are Saints George the Victorious, the warrior Theodore Tiron, Demetrius of Thessaloniki, the healer Panteleimon, the martyrs Anastasia of Rome, Catherine of Alexandria.
Thousands of Christians died for their faith in Christ in the first three centuries - men, women, children, clergymen, laity ...
In 313 the emperor Constantine the Great published in the city Milan edict(decree) ending the persecution of Christians. Nevertheless, in the areas of the empire under Constantine's co-ruler Licinia, the executions and persecution of Christians continued. So, in 319, the martyr suffered Theodore Stratilat, in 320 under Sevastia were tortured forty Christian warriors. In 324, Emperor Constantine defeated Licinius, and the Milan Edict of Tolerance began to be observed throughout the empire.
Freed from persecution and receiving the support of the emperor, the Church began to grow and strengthen.
Paganism, exhausted internally, having outlived itself by this time, quickly faded away. An attempt to restore it and renew the persecution of Christians was made in 362 Emperor Julian, for his rejection of Christianity received the nickname Apostate. During the year and a half of his reign, many Christians were persecuted and executed. WITH sudden death Juliana, the persecution of Christians stopped during the battle.
Church of the Martyrs
“From the first day of its existence, the Church was, is and will be martyrdom. Suffering and persecution is for the Church of God the atmosphere in which she constantly lives. At different times, this persecution was different: sometimes - explicit and open, sometimes - hidden and treacherous, ”wrote the Serbian theologian Venerable Justin (Popovic).
Until the 7th century, thousands of Christians suffered oppression and persecution in the Persian Empire. The martyr's crown was accepted by many bishops and clergymen, and even more common laymen - men and women. Many martyrs suffered in other pagan countries, for example, in the Gottf lands.
The Arians persecuted the Orthodox with special sophistication. So, in the 5th century in North Africa, sixty-two priests and three hundred laity were killed from the vandals who seized these lands, professing Arianism. Saint Maximus the Confessor and two of his disciples suffered from the Monothelite heretics.
Their right hands were cut off so that they could not write in defense of Orthodoxy, and all three were sent into exile, where they soon died. The iconoclastic emperors undertook a cruel persecution of the Orthodox. Monks, courageous defenders of the Orthodox teaching about holy icons, suffered especially these days. The historian describes the abuse of the Orthodox under the iconoclast emperor Constantine V: “He killed many monks with blows of whips and even with a sword, and blinded countless numbers; for some, they smeared their beards with wax and oil, let the fire go, and thus burned their faces and heads; others, after many torments, were sent into exile. " Suffered from these persecutions Saint Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople. Two brothers-monks Theophan and Theodore they burned offensive verses on their face (for this the brothers received the nicknames of the Inscribed).
At the beginning of the 7th century, Islam arose in Arabia and rapidly conquered the Middle East and North Africa... Many Christian martyrs suffered from them. So, in 845 in Amorite for refusing to deny Christ, they died forty-two martyrs.
A huge host of holy martyrs revealed Georgian Church... Very often, invaders of other faiths came to the Georgian land. In 1226, an army of Khorezmians, led by Khorezmshah Jalal ad-Din, attacked Georgia. After Tbilisi (Tpilisi) was taken, the shah drove all the townspeople to the bridge, on which he laid the holy icons. He offered freedom and generous gifts to those who deny Christ and trample holy icons. Then one hundred thousand Georgians testified to their faithfulness to Christ and accepted a martyr's end. In 1615, from the Persian Shah Abbas I, they accepted a martyrdom monks of the Davido-Gareja monastery.
The first saints revealed in our Russian Church were also martyrs - Our people were not yet enlightened by the faith of Christ and worshiped idols. The priests demanded from Theodore that he sacrificed his son John. As a Christian, Theodore obstructed this inhuman demand, and both father and son were killed. Their blood became the spiritual seed from which our Church grew.
Sometimes Christian missionaries became martyrs, as well as their flock, which they led to Christ. Two centuries (since early XVIII centuries) continued the activity of the Russian Spiritual Mission in China. At the very end of the 19th century, a nationalist uprising of the Ichtuan broke out in China. In 1900, the rebels reached the capital of China, Beijing, and began to burn down the houses of Europeans and Chinese Christians. Several dozen people, under pain of torture, renounced the faith, but two hundred twenty-two Orthodox Chinese survived and were honored with a martyr's crown. The head of the Council of Chinese Martyrs is Priest Mitrofan Tszi, the first Chinese Orthodox priest, ordained by Equal-to-the-Apostles Nicholas, the enlightener of Japan.
New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia
The most ambitious, systematic and massive persecutions in the history of the Church of Christ happened not centuries ago, in ancient times, but in Russia in the twentieth century. In terms of the number of those who suffered for Christ, the persecutions of the past century surpass both the Great Persecution of Diocletian and all other persecutions of Christians. In the first weeks after the Bolsheviks came to power (October 25, 1917) blood was shed Orthodox priests... Archpriest became the first martyr of the opened persecution John Kochurov, who served in Tsarskoe Selo (shot on October 31).
In January 1918, the participants in the Local Council held in Moscow were shocked by the news that on January 25, at the walls Kiev Pechersk Lavra the revered shepherd and hierarch was viciously killed Vladimir (Epiphany), Metropolitan of Kiev. The members of the Council issued a definition: “To establish an offering in churches during the divine service of special petitions for those who are now persecuted for Orthodox faith and the Church and the confessors and martyrs who died their lives and the annual prayer commemoration on January 25 or the next Sunday after this day of all the departed in this fierce time of persecution of confessors and martyrs. " Then, at the beginning of 1918, the participants in the Council probably could not imagine how many confessors and martyrs would join this memorial list in the following years.
The host of new martyrs included a great many hierarchs and priests - participants in the Local Council of 1917-1918. The head of the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia is its chairman, saint Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.
In those years, a huge number of bishops, priests, monks and laity suffered. Among the hundreds of hierarchs who suffered in those years are Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky), who officially replaced the patriarchal throne after the death of Patriarch Tikhon (f1925), but was actually imprisoned and completely deprived of the opportunity to rule the Church; Benjamin (Kazan), Metropolitan of Petrograd; Kirill (Smirnov), Metropolitan of Kazan; Hilarion (Troitsky), Archbishop of Verey.
The family of the last Russian sovereign occupies a special place in the Council of New Martyrs, Tsar Nicholas: Tsarina Alexandra and their children - Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexy, shot in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 17, 1918.
The authorities did not persecute the Church for political reasons. From 1933 to 1937, the so-called godless five-year plan passed, which, within the framework of national planning National economy set the goal of "finally getting rid of the religious intoxication." But the Church of Christ survived. In 1937, a state census was held, during which a third of the townspeople and two-thirds of the villagers declared themselves believers, convincingly testifying to the failure of the atheist campaign. The materials of this census were banned for use, many of those who carried out it were repressed. When the results of the 1937 census were published in 1990, it became clear why they had not been released for so long. It turned out that among the illiterate Orthodox believers aged sixteen and older accounted for 67.9%, among the literate - 79.2%.
The bloodiest persecutions took place in 1937-1939. During the Great Patriotic War some weakening of the persecution of the Church is noted. In 1943, after it became known that three thousand seven hundred and thirty-two churches were opened in the territories occupied by the Germans (more than there were at that time throughout Soviet Russia), the authorities reconsidered their position. However, during the war, arrests and executions of priests continued. From mid-1948, the state's pressure on the Church intensified again. Previously opened churches were closed again, many priests were arrested. From 1951 to 1972, almost half of all churches in Russia were closed.
The pressure of the state on the Church continued throughout the years of Soviet rule.
V modern world in some countries, real bloody persecutions against Christians continue. Hundreds of Christians (including Orthodox) are persecuted and executed every year. In some countries, the adoption of Christianity is punished by state legislation, and in some Christians are persecuted, humiliated and killed by aggressive citizens. The reasons for the persecution and hatred of Christians in different centuries and in different countries are announced different, but the common for all martyrs is their steadfastness and loyalty to the Lord.
