February 18, 2014
"It is a Tearful Joy:" Orthodox Faithful of Brooklyn Celebrate Feast of Holy New Martyrs

It is the second Sunday of February; the feast of the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church. In a building unremarkable at first glance, situated next to a firehouse and a Russian grocery store in Brooklyn, prayerful hymnody rings out: "For the people kissed the doomed ones condemned to death and their sacred hands and the hem of their garments, and some chanted triumphantly: ‘Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death!’" The faithful heard and marveled! They marveled and wondered: how could such a thing take place in those years of great suffering? And the following morning, when the church ‒ filled with the faithful for its patronal feast ‒ greeted the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad and the Protectress of the Russian Diaspora, the Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God, parish rector Archpriest Serge Lukianov took the tone of the service’s hymnody in greeting Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America & New York with these words: "In the service to the New Martyrs we read that then they went to their deaths, they said, ‘Christ is risen!’ And today we have this same feeling in our hearts. Today is our Lesser Pascha, our patronal feast day of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. Today we congratulate one another with our saint’s day, and greet you, Your Eminence, with the Paschal greeting ‒ ‘Christ is risen!’"

In Brooklyn today there are already four Russian Orthodox churches. And for the younger generation, stories of 12 years ago, when the first Russian parish began to gather in South Brooklyn under the omophorion of the Russian Church Abroad, are ancient history. They immediately decided to name it in honor of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, for they were greatly revered by the Russian Diaspora. Meanwhile, its first parishioners and laborers were primarily émigrés from the former Soviet Union; many of them had not only been not been active parishioners in their historic homeland, but did not even know the basics of their Orthodox Faith, and did not attend church.

One of the first parishioners, Ludmila Belsky, told me, "In Russia I lived in Chukotka, where we did not have even a single church. I came to New York 16 years ago to help children, and found faith and a church far from my homeland. Now I am in church almost every week. Faith gives me life, and supports me spiritually and morally."

Archpriest George Kallaur, founder and first priest of the new community, spoke about how at first the parish prayed in different locations; when they finally found a permanent home, they had to labor much in order to make the space resemble an Orthodox church.

Whether it was by our weakness or faintheartedness, or human jealousy, or the assaults of the enemy of mankind, the first Russian parish, located on Brooklyn’s bustling 18th Avenue, would suffer many sorrows in these first years. These sorrows could be healed and clothed only by the love, wisdom, and patience of the new rector and parish council.

The parish rector, Fr. Serge, directed the clergy and parishioners’ attention to the fact that it had been many years since so many clerics – 14 priests and four deacons ‒ had served in the church, and expressed the general consensus that all those present today could truly feel the Paschal joy.

Addressing the parishioners, Metropolitan Hilarion reminded them of the importance of observing Christ’s commandments: "We know that, when the people apostatized, violating God’s commandments, they were visited by sorrows. So it was in our homeland because of apostasy from the purity of the Faith: for our many sins, the Lord visited great persecutions upon the Russian Church ‒ the greatest in the history of Christianity. The persecutions of the emperors Nero and Diocletian are incomparable to the rivers of blood that poured out across the Russian land… A great multitude of hierarchs, clergy, and monastics accepted the crown of martyrdom and demonstrated their faithfulness to the Lord."

And truly, the fates of our Russian new martyrs and confessors – those glorified among the saints, as well as the multitude of those unknown to us and not glorified ‒ were likely far more frightening and difficult, than for those martyrs in the first centuries of Christianity, who lived amidst constant persecutions. As Archpriest Andrei Tkachev wrote in one of his articles, "In the majority of cases, our martyrs could hardly have imagined that their Orthodox homeland would become one great concentration camp, and that some of their neighbors ‒ yesterday’s believers ‒ would become their executioners and betrayers."

Today the churches are open, and the voice of the Church resounds loudly, but, as Metropolitan Hilarion put it, "We live in a tumultuous and cruel world, where a war is being waged against Christ’s Church, against Orthodoxy, which is why we must spiritually fortify ourselves, asking that the Lord give us strength and wisdom, strengthening us by the prayers of His saints ‒ the great multitude of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church."

 

Do the clergy and many parishioners of the first Russian Orthodox church in Brooklyn see this feast as sorrowful or joyous? I posed this question to those laity and clergy gathered in the church on the day of the feast.

 

For Natalia Pfeifer, one of the church’s choir members, this is a joyous feast. "This is a feast not only of the new martyrs, but also of the confessors. This gives hope to all of us, that one day we will also be able to appear among those depicted on the large icon placed in the church today. Their lives are an example for us to follow, teaching us how to live and preserve the Orthodox faith in purity."

 

Subdeacon Alexander Alexeenko agreed with Natalia: "The feast is a joyous one, of course. Despite the tragic ends of these saints’ earthly lives, we oughtn’t give in to sorrow; rather we ought to rejoice in the fact that we have so many prayerful intercessors in the Heavens."

 

"For every Russian soul, this is a second Pascha," said parish cleric Archpriest Petro Kunitsky. "If you think about it, we are all martyrs to some degree; all of us have suffered somewhat, and have waited for the day when we could openly confess our faith. And we must not forget those who suffered unto death, and who for these many decades have prayed for us in the Heavenly Kingdom."

…The first persecutions began in the Russian land immediately after the October Revolution. On November 13, 1917, Archpriest John Kochurov – a missionary who served in America under the direction of Patriarch Tikhon the Confessor ‒ was shot in the St. Petersburg suburb of Tsarskoe Selo. On January 25, 1918, Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev, the senior-most hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, was murdered in Kiev. Bishops and clergy, "elements alien and inimical to Soviet power," were exiled to the Solovetsky Islands. But even in imprisonment, their faith remained unbroken. In the forest, covering a stump with a towel for an antimension, they served the Liturgy and celebrated Pascha.

In the summer of 1937, a directive was issued on Stalin’s orders to shoot, over the course of the next four months, all of the confessors residing in the prisons and camps. One after another, spilling their blood for Christ, the hierarch-confessors left this life. 1937 and the following 1938 year became the most terrible for clergy and laity ‒ 200 thousand were "repressed," while another 100 thousand were executed. Every second clergyman was shot. But the Orthodox Church demonstrated great spiritual opposition to the totalitarian regime. The clergy and hundreds of thousands of laymen walked and completed their earthly paths as faithful children of the Church, unfailingly repeating: "Glory to God for all things!"

Parish cleric Priest Konstantin Gavrilkin shared his thoughts: "It is interesting that God established the feast day of the Synaxis of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church immediately before the beginning of Great Lent. This makes us think: this is a triumphal feast, but it is a triumph of those who have suffered for their faith. Nowhere does God promise us triumph on earth. We ought to be more mindful of this."

"The historical events surrounding today’s feast are certainly sorrowful, for thousands of people died for Christ," Archpriest Rafael Melendez (cleric of the Albanian Archdiocese of the Patriarchate of Constantinople) said, sharing his thoughts. "But we believe in eternal life, and the goal of our earthly life is to prepare ourselves for it, prepare for the joy of being with Christ. Today we also celebrate together ‒ the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant ‒ and we clearly hear the call of Christ the Savior, summoning us to follow His example and walk along His path, as did the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church."

During the terrible years of persecution, hundreds of thousands of Russian people responded wholeheartedly to Christ’s call to follow Him. And in their coming deaths they saw not an end, but only the beginning of an eternal life with God. That is why we must honor them not only with flinching terror at the thought of their great sufferings and the sheer scale of the persecutions, but also with the Paschal joy of meeting Him, Whom they so dearly loved and to Whom they preserved faithfulness to the end.

"The holy martyrs and confessors have no need of celebrations," said Metropolitan Hilarion in his sermon before the faithful. "It is we who are needful of remembering the great accomplishment of their loyalty to Christ, their firm stand in unshakeable faith; we need their prayers for our homeland, for all Orthodox Christians, that we, too, in that very moment when our faith, our loyalty to Christ is put to the test, we might also stand firm, and the Lord might help us in our stand."

 

Archpriest Alexander Belya, dean of New York City, recalled the words of the 3rd century Church writer Tertullian: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church;" and it is on the blood of the martyrs that Christ’s Church grows. The first Primate of the Church Abroad, Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky) was among the participants of the Local Council in the terrible year of 1918, and was one of the favorites for the Patriarchal Throne. But the Lord directed his path beyond the boundaries of this homeland, where he led the Russian Church in exile, preserving thousands of His countrymen under the aegis of the Church and in communion with Christ.

 

Now in our days, when the number of our compatriots coming to America has not decreased, the first Russian church in Brooklyn has been followed by three more parishes. And today, the flock of the Russian Church Abroad in Brooklyn, guided wisely and with love, has not only increased in number, but has become more united. It can be said without exaggeration that these are the fruits abundantly brought forth by the seeds of faith, faithfulness, and hope sown by the new martyrs and prayerful intercessors of the Russian Church.

 

Photographs of the All-Night Vigil     Photographs of the Divine Liturgy

Marina Dobrovolskaya
Media Office of the Eastern American Diocese