Patrick Comerford
Before today becomes a busy day I am taking some time for prayer and reflection early this morning.
These weeks, between the end of Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, are known as Ordinary Time. We are in a time of preparation for Lent, which in turn is a preparation for Holy Week and Easter.
In these days of Ordinary Time before Ash Wednesday later this month (22 February), I am reflecting in these ways each morning:
1, reflecting on a saint or interesting person in the life of the Church;
2, one of the lectionary readings of the day;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’
The Orthodox Church in both Russia and Ukraine honours the ‘New Martyrs and Confessors’ on the Sunday nearest 7 February (or 25 January in the old calendar).
The martyrs are a group of saints in Russia and Ukraine who were martyred or persecuted after the October Revolution of 1917. Their memorial is marked on the Sunday nearest 7 February, a date chosen because, ironically, Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev was murdered by Russian authorities on this day in 1918.
Shortly after the October Revolution, a resolution was passed on 18 (5) April 1918, proclaiming: ‘Set across Russia in the annual memorial on 25 January or next Sunday as day of all confessors and martyrs who died in the current fierce years of persecution.’
After the ‘legalisation’ of the Provisional Patriarchal Holy Synod under Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), the Moscow Patriarchate issued official statements that denied the church had been persecuted by the Soviet authorities. Nevertheless, many church members honoured people who had been persecuted and martyred.
The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia officially recognised the New Martyrs and Confessors in 1981. Ten years later, on 25 March 1991, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church officially recognised the New Martyrs.
Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Church under the leadership of Patriarch Alexis II began honouring some of the New Martyrs, beginning with the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna, Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev, and Metropolitan Benjamin of Petrograd in 1992. More names continues to be added to the list of New Martyrs, and the Orthodox Churches in Russia and Ukraine celebrate the feast of the New Martyrs and Confessors on the Sunday nearest 7 February (New Style) or 25 January (Old Style).
The date was chosen because 7 February was the date on which date Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev was martyred under Bolshevik rule following the October Revolution. He was the first bishop to be tortured and murdered by the Communists at the time of the Russian Revolution.
Metropolitan Vladimir was born Basil Nikephorovich Bogoyavlensky in Tambov on 1 January 1848, the son of a priest who was later murdered. The young Basil graduated from the Theological Academy in Kiev in 1874, and after his wife and child died in 1886, he entered Kozlov monastery in Tambov and was given the name Vladimir.
He was consecrated Bishop of Staraya Rus in 1888, became Bishop of Samara in 1891, and Archbishop of Kartalin and Kahetin. He became Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna in 1898, and held that post for 15 years, and was known for his compassion for the poor, for widows and for orphans, his interest in the education of children.
Metropolitan Vladimir was Metropolitan of Petrograd or St Petersburg, then the Russian capital, from 1912 to 1915. But, because he disapproved of Rasputin, Metropolitan Vladimir fell out of favour with the Tsar and was transferred to Kiev.
After the October Revolution at the end of 1917, the civil war reached Kiev in January 1918. Churches and monasteries were attacked and damaged, the Kiev Caves Lavra was seized, and monks were stripped and beaten. At 6:30 on the night of 25 January (7 February), five armed soldiers and a sailor came looking for Metropolitan Vladimir. The 70-year-old archbishop was tortured and choked in his bedroom with the chain of his cross.
He was then driven from the monastery to a place of execution. After praying for a short time and asking forgiveness for his sins, Metropolitan Vladimir blessed his executioners, saying, ‘May God forgive you.’ Then several rifle shots were heard.
The All-Russian Church Council was meeting in Moscow when word came of Metropolitan Vladimir’s murder. The council decided that 25 January (7 February), the day of his death, would be set aside for the commemoration of all martyrs and confessors killed by the Soviet authorities as the New Martyrs and Confessors.
Priests and bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church have been preaching for decades about the sufferings of these new martyrs and confessors murdered by the Russian authorities, and churches have been named in their honour.
They are remembered for resisting totalitarian rule in Russia, although the Russian Orthodox Church seems to be unaware of the irony of this commemoration today or of the fact that the date was chosen because of the Russian murder of the Metropolitan of Kiev in Ukraine.
At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, a number of Russian theologians wrote a ‘Declaration on the “Russian World” Doctrine’, although they softened their wording at the last moment. They used the term ‘a kind of Orthodox ethno-phyletic fundamentalism,’ but avoided using the word heresy. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has criticised the Russian Orthodox Church in a similar way.
Mark 7: 1-13 (NRSVA):
1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ 6 He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
“This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.”
8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’
9 Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! 10 For Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” 11 But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God)— 12 then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.’
USPG Prayer Diary:
The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘Christianity in Pakistan.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by Nathan Olsen.
The USPG Prayer Diary today invites us to pray in these words:
Let us pray for the people of Pakistan in the aftermath of devastating floods. May we show solidarity through our giving and stand alongside them in our thoughts and prayers.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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