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from:
International Herald Tribune

An Orthodox shrine rises on a Russian killing field
By Sophia Kishkovsky

Thursday, June 7, 2007
BUTOVO, Russia: Barbed wire still lines the perimeter of the secret police compound here on the southern edge of Moscow, where more - perhaps far more - than 20,000 people were shot and buried from August 1937 through October 1938, during the height of Stalin's purges. The killing field was run by the NKVD, a forerunner of the KGB, which controlled it into the 1990s.

Now, gradually, Butovsky Poligon - literally, the Butovo Shooting Range - is becoming a shrine to all the victims of Stalin's murderous campaigns. Grass-covered mounds holding the victims' bones crisscross the pastoral field, which is now dotted with flowers and birch trees. Searing portraits from victims' case files, found in the archives of the secret police, and a grim month-by-month chart of executions, are displayed in front of a small wooden church in the field.

"This place is our Russian Golgotha," the hill where Jesus was crucified, said Andrei Kuznetsov, 34, a social worker, making the sign of the cross recently in front of a newly built white stone church, the Church of the Resurrection and the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, near the site. "There is Golgotha in the Holy Land, where our Lord Jesus Christ suffered for our sins. All of Russia was Golgotha in the 20th century."

Butovo, now a hotbed of real estate development, has been in the news repeatedly over the past year because of a standoff between city officials and residents of a village who are resisting plans to raze their homes for high-rises.

But Butovsky Poligon is a symbol of a much larger, bloodier conflict in Russian society, that between the Bolsheviks and the Russian Orthodox Church. One thousand of those killed here are known to have died for their Orthodox faith. Over 320 have been canonized as "new martyrs" of the church - bishops, monks, nuns and lay people who were victims of the Soviet regime.

The new church was consecrated on May 19, as part of the celebration of the reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Church Abroad, an �migr� group that broke away in the 1920s. The walls of the church are filled with icons of the new martyrs - including one depicting the NKVD executioners shooting them - and hymns to them are sung at services. Glass cases in the lower church are filled with their personal items, such as an executed priest's prayer book, and his violin.

(read the rest of the story at:)

www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/07/news/journal.php [iht.com]

Tertullian observed that, �the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,� it seems to be literally true here.

How incredible. Thank you for posting this, Bob.

God bless,

Gordo

Holy Martyrs of Butovsky Poligon, intercede for our souls!

Build high-rise apartment buildings on top of the mass graves of the Martyrs? What a revolting idea! A shrine-church, yes, by all means, and a place where as much data as possible is made available to those who come to mourn, to pray, or even to attempt to comprehend what happened at Butovo. But can we imagine the uproar that would result if there were a proposal to build high-rise apartment buildings at Auschwitz?

Fr. Serge

Father Serge:

Father bless!!

I, too, am disturbed that we, Christians, cannot seem to arouse the same anger within ourselves personally or as a group over this sort of thing. Is it because we so much want to "fit in" or "be accepted" or somehow not seem so different from others around us who might criticise us for being what and who we are?

Asking for your blessing and continued holy prayers. Kissing your holy right hand,

BOB

Just as an update, records show that 20,765 people were executed and buried at Butovo between August 1937 and October 1938, during the peak of Stalin's repressions. This not take into account the 1000's who were recreationally killed and buried there. Amongst them are over 1300 killed because they were Orthodox and 327 canonized as martyrs thus far. Also suspected of being interred there are the 200+ nuns of the Donskaya Convent, who never made it to Kaluga.

Truly a Russian Golgotha!

Alexandr

ALEXANDR:

This just chills the blood. The utter brutality of killing people for sport stretches the imagination of how low human beings can sink into pure undiluted evil.

BOB