Tuesday, March 19, 2019

New martyrs to be glorified in Estonian Church

(Romfea) - The Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate decided to include in the canon of the Orthodox Church of Estonia those who gave their lives in martyrdom and those who are accounted as confessors for the Orthodox Faith between 1944 and 1955, following a proposal by the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Estonia and its President, Metropolitan Stephanos of Tallinn and All Estonia.

The names of the new New Martyrs are the following:

Saint Petros, Bishop of Tartu and Petseri,

Saint Alypios, Archimandrite

Saint Vladimiros, Protopresbyterian

Saint Seraphim, Priest

Saint Ioannis, Priest

Saint Leonidas, Priest

Saint Andreas

Saint Alexandros

Their memory was decided to be celebrated on August 20.

The Orthodox clergy and people of Estonia accepted this decision of the Mother Church of Constantinople with great joy and spiritual contentment.

3 comments:

  1. I told a pious Russian woman at my parish of my fascination with and veneration of the New Martyrs in Russia and the former Soviet bloc. I said I was surprised that after the fall of the USSR the MP had not done more to publicize the lives of these saints, to open the archives to allow more research into their lives and the lives of those not yet known. "It's because they do not want to let anyone know what they did. They don't care about the New Martyrs. They don't want to embarrass those in the Church or those in the government today, including Putin. They don't want to besmirch the time so many in Russia are now yearning for - a time when Russia was great, respected, feared. If so many think back fondly on Stalin, do you really think they want to share more about those Stalin martyred?"

    It's noteworthy how talk of the New Martyrs has quieted down in ROCOR, too. Not totally, of course, but quieter since the reunion.

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  2. I do have a huge issue with Russians who glorify Stalin. Ironic how they justify the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of 1939 which allowed WWII to begin. Franco of Spain used Hitler and got away with it. Stalin thought he could use him and got burnt.Stalin was so evil that at least a million Soviet prisoners voluntarily fought on the German side against the Soviets.

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