Conference Talk
The New Martyrs & Confessors
A Personal Memoir of Russia's Orthodox Clergy & Elders Under Communism
Today, many nations that recently called themselves Christian are losing their spiritual and moral bearings. Early in the last century, a new stage to de-Christianize culture, science, education, and national identity began in Russia with an attempt to demolish its Orthodox Christian faith.
After the abdication of the Tsar, but before the Bolsheviks took power, the greatest and most important council in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church began on August 15, 1917. The council reinstated the office of Patriarch, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, then elected Tikhon as Patriarch and established church governing institutions. But the major value of the council's acts was to prepare the church for the coming persecution, to encourage the episcopacy, clergy, and laity to steadfastly bear witness to their faith—to prepare for martyrdom.
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Vladimir Vorobyev , Archpriest, Ph.D., president and a founder of St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological University, was born in Moscow in 1941. He serves as the rector of St. Nicholas Church in Kuznetzy, Moscow. Fr. Vladimir heads the research department of the History of the Russian Orthodox Church of the 20th Century at St Tikhon's. He is the chief editor of a 25-volume academic series, Documents and Materials on the History of the Russian Orthodox Church of the 20th Century, which includes numerous memoirs.
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