We commemorate today the Assembly of Russia’s New Martyrs and Confessors – all those who martyred in the years of severe persecutions against the faith and the Church of Christ. It is a great occasion for the whole Church as we remember tragic events but at the same time celebrate because the era which continued in our country for 70 years in the 20^th century also revealed to the world a great assembly of confessors and new martyrs. They preferred dying to renouncing Christ and today they pray for us and our Motherland in the triumphant heavenly Church.

The persecution started immediately after the 1917 October Revolution when the Bolsheviks took over. The persecution against the faithful was purposeful and long and excelled in cruelty all the previous persecutions against the Church including those by Roman emperors in the 1^st, 2^nd and 3d centuries. The theomachist regime did everything to destroy religion and the Church, her people and those who bore the grace-giving spirit of Christ that used to nourish our Motherland for centuries.