the holy new martyrs of eastern russia - Coptic Orthodox teaching

541
installed a Russian stove with benches, put in a small table for meals, a bed for
the parents and a trunk with clothes. The children slept on the trunk and the
stove, and sometimes simply on the floor. They were all in one room with their
parents. This small room, which could be entered only one at a time, served as
their kitchen, dining room and bedroom. It was from this bath-house that Fr.
Macarius was evicted and taken to prison...
The family lived on alms from the parishioners. They would creep up
bringing bread and potatoes and furtively looking on either side as they
entered the courtyard in case outsiders noticed them. The Kvitkins had no
other kind of support since they were "depriveds" (deprived of civil rights, a
category to which the families of clergy belonged).
The bath-house where they lived was located four or five blocks from the
church. Every time Fr. Macarius and his children went to church in the
morning for the Liturgy, or in the morning for the all-night vigil, they were
met on the street by pioneers who threw sand and sometimes even stones at
them. Batyushka ordered his children never to reply to these pranks, but to
walk calmly on, for they could not expect support from anyone.
From the time that Fr. Macarius remained alone in the church of St.
Seraphim, they began to terrorize him and summon him to the GPU. His first
summons was supposedly in connection with his non-commemoration of
Metropolitan Sergius as patriarchal locum tenens, and also because under his
rectorship the parish did not pay the "lawful" tax. The second summons was
accompanied by a warning: if the parish did not pay the indicated sum, they
would close the church. The atheists suggested to Fr. Macarius that since they
would close the church come what may, he should renounce God and his
priestly rank in the columnns of the district newspaper. He was to admit that
he had "drugged" the people with "religious obscurantism". In return, they
promised him a place as a teacher, perhaps even as a school director. Fr.
Macarius replied with a categorical refusal. Then they began to try and
convince him that in this way he would save his own life and the life of his
children. But Fr. Macarius replied that he did not fear death, and that he
entrusted his children to the will of God, but that he would never, under any
circumstances, break the vow he had given to God. The Lord did not
disappoint the hopes of the martyr: all his children grew up to be honourable,
believing and pious people.
The chekists advised him to think well about their proposition and to give
them a final answer when they next summoned him. And so, on January 21,
1931, they came at midnight to search the bath-house. The search lasted until
four in the morning. Of course, they found nothing. Before leaving, Fr.
Macarius said goodbye to his family, blessed his matushka and children, and
was taken to prison. On March 26, 1931 he was accused of “being a member of
the counter-revolutionary organization, ‘The Trues’ [True Orthodox
541