New Martyrs
THOMAS KITSON
Orthodoxy calls those who died witnessing to their faith in the eras following Constantine’s Edict of Milan (313) the “New Martyrs.” The title was first used for the victims of heretical rulers during the Byzantine Iconoclastic controversies that preceded the Triumph of Orthodoxy in 843. While there was no systematic persecution during the Ottoman period, Christians were often punished for activities that directly threatened the Islamic faith. New Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke (commemorated on the third Sunday after Pentecost) suffered for openly preaching Christianity, for converting others (or reverting to the faith after adopting Islam), and for causing disturbances by promoting Christian revival (which, beginning with the 19th- century liberation movements, often carried ethnic and national overtones). There were numbers of New Martyrs in China and Japan also. The actively atheist Soviet government encouraged varying degrees of organized church persecution after the 1917 Russian Revolution, involving many thousands of martyrs. In 1981 the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia recognized many Soviet victims, hierarchs, clergy, monks, and laity (including Tsar Nicholas II and his family) as New Martyrs and commemorates them on January 25, the date of Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev’s martyrdom in 1918. In recent years the Moscow patriarchate has also systematically extended the lists of the New Martyrs of Russia. Many other New Martyrs suffered under the Nazis (including Mother Maria Skobtsova) and their allies (the Serbian New Martyrs are commemorated on June 15), as well as subsequently under the violently repressive communist regimes in Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and other parts of the Soviet Eastern bloc.
SEE ALSO: Albania, Orthodox Church of; Bulgaria, Patriarchal Orthodox Church of; Contemporary Orthodox Theology; Romania, Patriarchal Orthodox Church of; Russia, Patriarchal Orthodox Church of; St. Elizaveta Feodorovna (1864–1918); Serbia, Patriarchal Orthodox Church of
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Cavarnos, C. (1992) The Significance of the New Martyrs. Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies.
Papadopoulos, L. J. and Lizardos, G. (1985) New Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke. Seattle: St. Nektarios Press.
Polsky, M. (1979) The New Martyrs of Russia. Munich: St. Job of Pochaev Press.