the holy new martyrs of eastern russia - Coptic Orthodox teaching

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While living in Kazan, Vladyka Nectarius sometimes went into sergianist
churches, but did not take part in the service and had no communication with
the priests, but only kissed the icons and listened to the chanting. Once, when
the bishop was standing in one of those churches, the deacon began to cense
Vladyka three times in accordance with his hierarchical rank. However,
Bishop Nectarius turned away from him and did not give him his hierarchical
blessing. There was another incident at this time: a person died, and the
relatives came to Vladyka and asked him to perform the burial. The bishop
asked: “To what church did the deceased go?” It turned out that he went to
the sergianist church. Then Vladyka said: “Well, let them bury him.”
Protopriest Nicetas Ignatiev recounts how he met Vladyka Nectarius: “I
arrived in Kazan and searched out the street, the house, the number… I
entered. He was working in the carpenter’s shop. He was not tall, in civil
clothing, in a jacket. ‘How can I find Vladyka Nectarius, and see him?’ ‘You
will see him now.’ He quickly turned – he was young and brisk, just out of the
Academy – went and put on his podryasnik and ryasa and klobuk. ‘Here is
Vladyka Nectarius for you.’” Fr. Nicetas took his blessing and confessed that
he found himself ill at ease in front of Vladyka: “I took you for a
novice.”During this conversation told him that he had not signed the
Declaration [of Metropolitan Sergius] and had then been subject to
persecution in Moscow, so that it became impossible for him to stay there any
longer. And so Archimandrite Seraphim had advised him to turn to him,
Bishop Nectarius. “So go to Vyatka province, go to Sanchure and live there.
It’s a little quieter,” said Vladyka, and gave him a signed paper which said
something like: “I allow Protopriest Nicetas Ignatiev to serve in all the
Orthodox churches of Yaransk diocese…” “Vladyka, you know I’ve been
invited to go to Fr. Seraphim, I can be there for only two weeks.” Vladyka
slapped him on the shoulder: “Perhaps for twenty years.” His prophetic
words were fulfilled twice over – Fr. Nicetas was in that region, not for
twenty, but for forty years…
The GPU had planted an agent in Vladyka Nectarius' circle, and he
reported that Vladyka had been ordaining priests and deacons whom he sent
to the Yaransk and Chuvash diocese, and that he was serving together with
Fr. Arcadius Volokitin, who had set up a secret church in his house. The two
of them "on the one hand,.. are establishing links with exiles in Narymsk
region, Kazakhstan, Turukhan region, etc., and on the other hand, with the
Vyatka and Ufa provinces and with the neighbouring republics of the
culturally backward national minorities." Bishop Nectarius received letters
from exiled bishops and priests, and these were distributed through the
monks and nuns of the closed monasteries to the Vyatka and Ufa dioceses, to
the Chuvash republic and the Mari region. "Pilgrimages to Bishop Nectarius,"
said the informer, "have begun from Chuvashia and Mari, and in general
from the culturally backward national minorities."
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