www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News New Orthodox Saints

Dear Friends,

On 11 April 2006 AD, the Russian Orthodox Church raised to the honours of the altar 19 New Martyrs of the Soviet Yoke, most from Ekaterinburg.

After the Glorification of the New Martyrs and Confessors in 2000 AD, the ROC included a proviso to keep placing additional New Martyrs and Confessors into the calendar as new information concerning individual martyrs comes to light over time.

Several hundred additional saints have been added since that time, and this is the latest addition.

Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of the Godless Yoke, pray unto God for us!

Alex

Alex,

Do you have any further information as to who they are?

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

Greetings to all.

I have googled and dog piled, etc. with no success in finding out this information.

I also would really like to hear more regarding our newest saints.

In Christ,

Michael

Dear Friends,

Christ is Risen!

On 11 April of this year, the ROC held a Sobor at which it glorified the following New Martyrs:

From the Eparchy of Ekaterinburg -

St Vladimir Kholodokovsky, priest, +1937

St Sergius Uvitsky, priest,+1932

(Mention is also made of one St Alexius Kromensov, also a New Hieromartyr and that there are now about forty New Martyrs glorified in the Ekaterinburg Eparchy).

From the Eparchy of Kazan:

St Michael Votiakov, Hieromartyr, +1931.

From the Moscow Eparchy:

St Theodosius Hanitskov, Bishop of Kolomna, +1937.

St Nicholas Poretsky, Protopresbyter, +1933

St Alexius Znamensky, Protopresbyter, +1938.

St Alexander Rusynov, Protopresbyter, +1938

St Paul Kosminkov, Protopresbyter, +1938

St Sergius Orlov, Priest, +1937

St Alexius Drozdov, Protodeacon, +1942

St Tatiana Skezmazova, martyr, +1942

St Alexandra Khvorostiankova, martyr, +1943

St Joanna Demidova, martyr, +1937

St Joanna Demidova, martyr, +1944

From the Eparchy of Ryazan:

St Michael Viktorov, Protopresbyter, +1933

St Leonid Viktorov, Protopresbyter, +1938

From the Eparchy of Simbir:

St John Ilinsky, Protopresbyter, +1918

St Nicholas Pokrosky, Priest, +1919

Holy New Martyrs, pray unto God for us!

Alex

Holy New Martyrs, pray unto God for us!

Christ is Risen!

Bless, Father Elias!

Yes, that's exactly what I meant!

Truly He is Risen!

Alex

Christ is Risen!

Holy New Martyrs intercede for us!

In the Risen Christ,
Father Anthony+

Well, the question remains... Can there be sainthood outside the Holy Catholic Church?

Such a question needs to be answered, of course, within the context of the question: �Who is a member of the Catholic Church?� Pope John Paul the Great considered the Orthodox Church to be a member of almost perfect standing.

Putting it very bluntly Armando

YES

I certainly hope so, or some very high level delegations from Rome would have been wasting their time attending canonisation ceremonies in Moscow as representatives of the Pope of Rome.

XB! BB!

ICXC
NIKA

Dear Friends,

Armando's question is excellent and bears close consideration by all!

The Saints of Orthodoxy, including those glorified after the parting of the ways in 1054, have always been considered "saints" by Rome and we know this on the basis of how local Saints of Orthodox entering unions with Rome remained on the Eastern Catholic calendars (minus those who were seen to be overtly "anti-Rome").

Met. Andrew Sheptytsky's petition to Rome to recognize all the saints of the Russian Orthodox Church was granted in 1904.

As Pavel quite correctly indicated, Roman Catholic representatives abound at Orthodox glorification ceremonies.

They participate in the reverencing of the relics and icons of the newly-glorified Orthodox saints and receive gifts of their icons to take with them.

If Rome did not recognize the "validity" of any of this, then clearly her prelates should not be present at those ceremonies.

The general principle is that "we don't question the validity of each other's canonizations."

In the lives of the Saints of all the apostolic Churches that have the doctrine of the veneration of the Saints, we can find Saints belonging to one Church, but whose sanctity is celebrated only in another Church and so on.

There is one "St John the New Martyr" on the island of Rhodes who was a knight killed by the Turks there and who is honoured as a saint ONLY by the local Greek Orthodox people. His cult is unknown in Rome.

Pope Liberius of Rome is honoured as a saint in the Orthodox Church of the East, but he was the first Roman Pope not to have received the honours of the altar in the West.

St John Cassian is honoured as a full saint in the East, but owing to his opposition to St Augustine, he is only a local saint of Marseilles in the West.

Several of the famous converts from Anglicanism to Catholicism continued to venerate the Anglican King Charles the Martyr (Ven. John Newman, Ronald Knox) and even petitioned Rome to approve his local cult. They also venerated Bl. King Henry VI of England who would have been canonized were it not for the divorce of Henry VIII (Henry VIII, until that point, had even contributed monies toward his predecessor's canonization!). Pope John XXIII personally approved the "Society of King Henry VI" of which I am also a member and allowed members of the society to publicly invoked the holy king as "Blessed."

There are also hundreds of local saints everywhere whose cult is only marked by perhaps a few villages.

Bl. Basil Velichkovsky, C.SS.R, insisted on accepting ALL the local Orthodox saints for veneration by the Eastern Catholic church (as long as they weren't "anti-Roman" of course).

There can be no doubt that the New Martyrs and Confessors of the soviet era represent the kind of martyrdom that the early Christians suffered.

The Russian government's own review of their martyrdom indicated numerous and ingenius tortures imposed on these martyrs.

One Russian investigator, however, in preparing his report noted that one torture in particular shocked him - placing Orthodox Christians on frozen lakes in the nude and then pouring water over them to allow them to freeze like ice-cubes.

One Orthodox Archbishop in Crimea was actually NAILED by his hands and feet to the Royal Doors of his cathedral's iconostasis on GREAT FRIDAY . . . In fact, many priests, including some Grek-Catholic ones, were so nailed by their hands and feet to the doors of their churches by the "servants of satan."

All Christians, I believe, should venerate the New Martyrs and Confessors of the soviet yoke - and those of the Turkish yoke as well.

We know that martyrs were accepted universally by the Church of Christ even when their orthodoxy of faith was sometimes in question.

St Basil the Great wrote a panegyric in honour of St Nicetas the Goth who was ordained a priest by the Arian bishop Wulfilas.

And in BOTH Catholic and Orthodox calendars today we have saints who were Arians et al. The Saints of the formerly Miaphysite Church of Georgia, including St David of Garesja, are now universally honoured by the Orthodox Church.

St David of Garesja disputed with Greek Orthodox theologians of his day and was called, by them, "that putrefaction from Georgia . . ."

Alex

Dear Alex,

Thanks for all this information.

May the new martyrs of Ottoman and Soviet yoke, pray unto God for us!

In Christ,
Alice

Dear Alex,

I will give you another saint that is highly venerated on the island of Chios in the Aegean.

It is said that Saint Markella was a young girl during the time the island belonged to Genoa, and was chased by her father for who knows what reason. We can use our imagination for that. Well she asked that the ground open up and swallow her, and it did...that is except for her head, which was immediately chopped off by her father.

The place exists where her blood stained the stones, and there is a spring next to the sea that bubbles up whenever the priest starts his prayers.

Saint Markella is highly venerated on the island, more so than any other saint, (and they have many saints). As a matter of fact, many miracles have been wrought in her name. Now at the time of her martyrdom, a Genovese ship was passing by and saw her head glowing in the water. Because her name was Markella, (Marcella), and it was a Latin name, her head was taken to the Vatican...or so the story goes.

There is a story that when Cyprus was invaded by the Turkish troops about 30 or so years ago, and the Junta in Greece was ready to go to war with Turkey, (it is only a few miles off the coast line), that a bus going to the remote area where her death took place, stopped to pick up a woman. The bus driver rudely told her to get off since she did not have a ticket.

Well she did, and then when turning around he found her on the bus again. He then said 'how did you get on' and once again told her to get off.

This time she replied that she was Aghia Markella, and that she would protect the island and for the people not to worry...and then dissappeared.

Well Greece didn't go to war, thanks to Kissinger who by the way was the one that allowed Turkish troops to invade Cyprus...so that was that. The Turkish troops are still on Cyprus in case anyone's interested.

Zenovia