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Protopresbyter Alexander Kiselev

How the New Martyrs of Russia Were Glorified

The day has arrived when the New Martyrs of Russia, already glorified by God in Heaven, those who, in the words of Apostle Paul, "the whole world is unworthy of," have been included among the host of saints on earth, loudly, before all of mankind. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia declared this to the world on 31 October/1 November 1981. It may be that not everyone can yet accept this greatest of events, which has witnessed the victory of the Church--adorned with innumerable martyrs--six years before the 1000-year anniversary of the Baptism of Russia.

This even is so great, so unheard-of, that it is difficult to wrap one's mind around it. If the chosen of the chosen--the apostles of Christ--could not immediately perceive and absorb the news of the resurrecton of the Son of God, then little wonder that we, feeble Christians of today, cannot understand, comprehend the significance of the path of the New Martyrs of Russia towards the holy day of the awakening of the entire Russian nation from its sinful dreams, the complete renewal of all our people. The 1000th anniversary is the deadline upon this path when we must account for what has occurred and what we have done.

Our Orthodox people, baptized a thousand years ago by Holy Grand Duke Vladimir, Equal-to-the-Apostles, even now, in the host of the New Martyrs, led by the Holy Royal Martyr Tsar Nicholas, remain the same. They include tens and tens of millions of Russians who did not achieve holiness through the manifestation of the truth in their lives, but remaining true to Christ-God, clothed themselves in Christ. What does it mean, to clothe oneself in Christ? During the baptism, these words are sung: "baptize yourselves in Christ, clothe yourselves in Christ." Clothe yourselves, that is, put on that which expresses our inner essence, our faith. Inseparable, indissoluble from our essence must be, for us, the putting on of the truth of life in Christ, or rather--Christ Himself must become our clothing. The people clothed themselves in Christ through the blood of our New Martyrs and through personal loyalty to the truth of Christ, even if expressed in single grains, in details, in separate instances in the lives of the suffering majority of our people over this terrible sixty-year tribulation. This is the examination before our 1000-year anniversary.

On 31 October/1 November, the trek of the army of Christ, the holy martyrs, and with them all the faithful, marched upon those who still slumber spiritually, those who do not see, do not understand, those who continue to commit outrages, to "awaken" them from sleep and from insanity, for all to stand with the saints on the day of the 1000-year anniversary of the first meeting of Christ with our people--the thousandth anniversary of the Baptism of Holy Russia. We no longer fear for our people as a whole, for in answer to the question put to us by Christ, what was done with the talents given to it, our people will answer with all the Saints of Russia in the host of New Martyrs and Confessors, the equal of which not one other people have. All that remains is the fear of individual negiligence, personal indifference, which may not be inflamed by the holy fire of the righteous. May this not be!

How victorious is the as yet unseen march of the holy martyrs and righteous people of Russia, and together with them all those who now may be weak, but who thirst for and strive to express in life the truth of Christ's testament!

Do not tarry! Hasten, every Orthodox person, to join their ranks, for the time has come for a fateful decision: are you with God or against Him? Two forces, two directions, like two hurricanes, are at work now: that striving for the center--towards Christ, where in the words of Saint Seraphim of Sarov, "Pascha will be sung throughout the year," and that which leads away from the center; towards the night of the Antichrist, away from Christ: "Let those who despise Him flee from Him."How did the celebration of the triumph of Glorification occur?

Those who have never been in the Synodal Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sign in New York, the cathedra of the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, must imagine a huge hall belonging at one time to a very wealthy American family, which over twenty years ago became a church. The wondrous three-tiered iconostasis, icons, frames, all infused with prayer and with the presence there of the holy relic of the Russian Church, the Miracle-working Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God (before which Saint Seraphim of Sarov received his first healing)--all this has long ago erased any traces of a hall in a worldly house and gave us a cathedral which can hold some one thousand people.

From the street, through wrought-iron gates, one can see a spacious flagstone courtyard with two wide, turning staircases rising up to the second floor, where three enormous glass doors lead to the Cathedral.

On Saturday, 31 October, at 5 pm, all this was already overflowing with worshipers who came to the last pannikhida for the New Martyrs of Russia.

All 16 bishops attending the Council emerged from the altar for the pannikhida (only two were absent due to reasons of health), headed by Metropolitan Philaret, the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, along with a host of clergymen. A seemingly endless list of names of New Martyrs was read at the litanies: clergymen, headed by His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, members of the Royal Romanoff family, headed by Emperor Nicholas II, names of monastics and laymen, famous and unknown, of various rank and calling, age and sex, including children who accepted a martyric death for Christ. These hundreds of names represent only a small fraction of the millions of sufferers, behind each of whom is a whole story, a human drama, with years of suffering and torture, not to speak of losses, separations, tears, abandonment...

Only a few hundred of those who are being glorified today were commemorated by name. The many thousands who were included to our lists of New Martyrs, but those about whom there was a lack of exact details or testimonies were not named. This does not mean that their martyrdom is questioned. Until there is confirmation, they exist in the continuing process of glorification—we pray for them Òtheir names, O Lord, Thy knowest,Ó in time they will be included. But then ÒEternal MemoryÓ was intoned, the singing of which quickly, like fire, swept through the entire temple, and the thousand-strong crowd of worshipers joined the choir and the clergy, so it seemed that the very walls of the church are singingÉThe final pannikhida was over.

Vigil began. The altar, it seemed, was more crowded than the church. At times during the service, not all the clergymen emerged from the altar, but only some, for it was too difficult to stand in the proper order, to exit the altar, and return to it because of the lack of room. The entire host of clergy only emerged for the actual magnification (polyeleos), which consisted of the opening of the reliquaries of Holy Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna and Novice Barbara, and the removal of the covering from the new icon of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, the grace-filled beseechers of the Lord for our people. I stood in fourth place in accordance with seniority among the priests, on the right side, that is, right near the relics and the icon: but I could not see how the martyrs’ relics were removed over the shoulders of the Metropolitan, the Protodeacon and others. What could those standing farther away have seen? Absolutely nothing. How is it, then, that they stood for 6-7 hours in a row (the anointing and veneration of the relics and icon lasted until after midnight), compressed into a mass of humanity?

Of course, the people did not just stand, they prayed. And of course, they waited for the opportunity to venerate the relics, but one must take another thing into account: the life of the Church is not rational. The Church, as the mystical Body of Christ, possesses a special charisma, whose power exceeds that of all human reasoning. This power can be felt during church gatherings, during especially important church events, processions of the cross, pilgrimagesÉIt was felt among us then, during this great occurrence, the glorification of the New Martyrs of Russia.

The life of the Church is not just preaching the word of truth, but the recreation of it in real life. Where it happens, where prayer unites with deed, the life of the general consciousness of the people is created, an irrational consciousness. During the glorification, the cathedral and surrounding areas did not contain 2000 separate individuals, and not a crowd without inner unity--in the cathedral stood the CHURCH: the holy residents of Heaven, the bishops, Orthodox people, breathing another kind of air, not knowing why and how. That is how they could stand for seven hours, and that is why they uttered to each other: "Christ is Risen!" and "Rejoice!"
That is why it is proper to sing before church meetings: "This day the grace of the Holy Spirit gathers us..."

And so, the holy relics were uncovered. The relics, the portion brought from Jerusalem (the right hand of Holy Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth and the bone from the forearm of Holy Martyr Novice Barbara), came from our Gethsemane Convent, where they arrived in January 1921. The story of the murder of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, the sister of the Empress, along with five other Dukes of the Royal Family, Novice Barbara and F.M. Remeza, the story of who she was and what she did in Russia, and also how her coffin reached Jerusalem, can be found in the book Pamyat' ikh v rod i rod ["Their Memory for Generation Upon Generation"] (St. Seraphim Foundation).

We cannot stop here on the details of the opening of the coffins in Jerusalem of the holy Martyrs Elizabeth and Barbara, which would require an entire book: I will speak only of the relics themselves. When they set about to uncovering them, it turned out that there was not one, but five coffins, one inside the other, each containing two martyrs, which was apparently necessary due to the long trek through Siberia and China to Palestine. The first, outer coffin was iron. It had rusted to the point that it crumbled at the touch into separate pieces. The inside of the coffin, however, contained the partially uncorrupted relics of two martyrs of Christ.

What are relics? The Church calls relics the remains of any reposed Orthodox Christian. In the book called the trebnik [Book of Needs], the rite of burial, it says: "having entered the house wherein the relics of the departed one lie..."

The Orthodox East considers it a sign of holiness when the body corrupts quickly, when clean bones remain; we in Russia think the opposite: it even caused consternation when a righteous person's body disintegrated. Such frustration was present, for example, when the coffin of St. Seraphim of Sarov was opened, revealing only his bones. In what way to the remains of a holy person differ from that of a regular person? Not in that the former exhibit complete or partial corruption, but that through them (even if they are nothing but bones), help is provided, miraculous help, the power of the saints to whom the bones belong. This power is expressed not only from the surviving portions of the body, but even through their things, their clothing...Even the shadow of the passing Apostle Peter performed miracles and healings. Thanks to this, the glorification of the New Martyrs of Russia occurred through the opening before us of the holy relics and the holy icon of the New Martyrs.

And so the holy relics were opened: the cloth was removed from a very large icon of the New Martyrs. Metropolitan Philaret returned to his cathedra among the other bishops, the censer spread aromatic incense all around, and the choir sang, for the first time on earth, the magnification for those whose life was drained out of them one drop of blood at a time, who traveled that terrible path of martyrdom in our day: ÒWe magnify you, O holy new martyrs and confessors of Russia, and we reverence your honored sufferings, which ye endured for Christ.Ó


Unfortunately, every word of this prayer can be read without feeling, automatically. But each word can also be spoken from the utter depths of a person, it can overturn everything inside a person, it can perform a miracleÉI can barely remember how I sang the magnification, I barely noticed how they sang around me, but it felt like thunder, like some unearthly din. I cannot describe what I felt during those minutes. When I raised my head, I saw tears in the eyes of the people around me. Many faces shone brightly. The truth of the words of the service to the New Martyrs: Òabundantly watered with the sweetness of grace, set forth before us in the fragrance of their holiness, that, edified by their struggle, with compunction we may also offer unto God the fruit of repentance.Ó

Truly inscrutable are the ways of God. Allowing our country to befall terrible destruction, the Lord preserved, outside its borders, a clump of Russia Abroad. The glorification of the New Martyrs of Russia, impossible under the god-battling communist state, is being performed by the part of the Russian Church that is abroad. Yet there is more. The Lord allowed that the only holy relics known to us to exist to be abroad, having traveled during the Civil War through Siberia, China, the Middle East and end up in Jerusalem, in our Gethsemane Convent. May no one say that the glorification of the New Martyrs was a usurpation of the rights of the Russian Church by the part of the Russian Orthodox Church that is abroad. The holy act of glorification is being performed by the very Hand of the Lord!

ÒO victims for God who were buried alive, cast down into a well-like pit! First among you the passion-bearer Elizabeth, the merciful princess who strove for the things of heaven, finding the pearl of Orthodoxy in her new homeland, who in accordance with the Gospel forgave the slayer of her husband, and who pleased God with prayer and charity, yet was not spared by the godless! Pray also for us, ye holy princes! Pray for all, O venerable passion-bearer Barbara! Hearken unto us, ye who were buried in the Garden of Gethsemane! Give ear to us, ye whose place of burial is unknown!Ó (From the new service to the New Martyrs of Russia).

The following day, Sunday, 1 November, began early. At 9 a.m. the First Hierarch Metropolitan Philaret was greeted. Again, all sixteen bishops present for the Council served, truly the diaspora-wide scope of the Church. Here are the names and cathedras of the ruling bishops:

 

Metropolitan Philaret of Eastern America and New York

Archbishop Seraphim of Chicago and the Midwest

Archbishop Afanasii of Buenos Aires and Argentina/Paraguay

Archbishop Filofei of Berlin and Germany

Archbishop Vitaly of Montreal and Canada

Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles and Southern California

Archbishop Anthony of Geneva and Western Europe

Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco and Western America

Archbishop Seraphim of Caracas and Venezuela

Archbishop Nafanail of Vienna and Austria

Archbishop Laurus of Syracuse and Holy Trinity Monastery

Archbishop Paul of Sydney and Australia/New Zealand

Bishop Nikandr of Brazil and Sao Paolo

Bishop Konstantin of Richmond and Great Britain

Bishop Mark of Stuttgart and Southern Germany

Bishop Nektarii of Seattle

Bishop Alypy of Cleveland

Bishop Gregory of Washington and Florida


Some seventy priests and deacons supplemented the host of serving clergymen, a significant portion of which came from distant countries, as did many of the worshipers.

In our ÎmigrÎ situation, we often hear complaints of our decreasing numbers, our feeble replenishment by the younger generations. This time, to everyone's astonishment, the uncommon plenitude of young people caught everyone's notice, from very young priests and deacons, a large number of sub-deacons and altar boys, seminarians, and young faces in general, densely filling the crowd, and finally, young married couples with their progeny in their arms. There were very many Old-calendar Greek clerics, Americans who converted to Orthodoxy from Catholicism and Protestantism.

At the end of liturgy, many approached the Holy Chalice. Communion was administered not only from the ambo, but also from the hierarchal ambo in the center of the church. The liturgy ended with a glorious sermon by Vladyka Metropolitan on the present glory of the Russian Church, and a procession of the cross.

Some two hours later, many gathered in a hall rented for the occasion, where a feast was served for 900 people. The new icon of the New Martyrs of Russia was given a ceremonious greeting and placed on a special dais, at the foot of which sat the bishops. Upon the blessing of the food, the feast began, during which the Act on the Glorification of the New Martyrs was read to total silence, along with the ÒEpistle of the Council of Bishops to the Orthodox People in the Homeland and the Diaspora,Ó an account of the execution of the first of the New Martyrs of Russia, Holy Metropolitan Vladimir, who was until his last moment blessing his murderers, and of the murder of the Royal Family. In conclusion, two wonderful sermons were given: Archbishop Vitaly of Canada characterized what we experience over the last two days of the glorification as Òheaven descended upon the earth,Ó and the spiritual state achieved when a person desires, in his own life, to emulate the firmness of the martyrs. Archbishop Anthony of Geneva said that may Orthodox Christians in Russia are in need of the prayers of the New Martyrs. ÒAnd you and I,Ó asked the Archbishop, Òdo we, in our slumber-inducing comfort, feel the need for the prayers of the New Martyrs?Ó The ÒPaschaÉthroughout the year,Ó of which Saint Seraphim spoke, was felt by us yesterday, and we wanted to sing ÒChrist is Risen,Ó said Vladyka. And so ended the glorification of the New Martyrs of Russia.

In conclusion of this brief description of the indescribably significant event, which is accepted more and more in our consciousness and will grow yet more, we will end with one more excerpt from the service of the New Martyrs: ÒThe Church of Russia is glorified by your sufferings, O new martyrs, our kinsmen of every rank and estate, who were slain for Christ by the godless, for the salvation of us who chant: O God our Deliverer, blessed art Thou!Ó

From Russkoye Vozrozhdenie [Russian Rebirth]

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