the holy new martyrs of eastern russia - Coptic Orthodox teaching

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suffering here, but the bishops and the flock. – But is this not the Little
Church? Is it not a cell of the Universal Church? But this is necessary, in the
words of Metropolitan Sergius, for the supposed revealing of loyalty in
relation to the civil authorities. – What madness! Revealing the loyalty of the
Church by killing her!
“Then the second support of Orthodoxy turned out to be the parish
councils. And what are these new enemies of Orthodoxy doing? They are
giving orders to reduce the significance of these parish councils to nothing,
and this in order their appointee-bishop may distribute the clergy places at
their own discretion. What a defilement of souls is now being begun by
impious clergy whom the bishops will stuff everywhere; and others, not
recognized by the believing people, will produce a terrible dissolution of faith
and fall of religious life.
“In conclusion, I beseech you, as a friend whom I venerate for your piety,
to flee from the poisonous seductive speeches (letters) that are tempting you
like snake, and wish to separate you from the live-giving tree of the Truth.
“Let us remain firm and unbending in out confession for the Truth of God
that we undertook in 1922, so that the Lord may not refer to us the voice of
the prophet: ‘My priests have rejected My law and defiled My holy things.
They do not distinguish between the holy and the defiled. They are all the
same for them’ (Ezekiel 22.26).
“Remember the great confessor Theodore the Studite, whom we read
together. He ceased communion with the Patriarch only because the patriarch
did not want to defrock a priest who had consciously carried out an unlawful
crowning. But there is no way that you can want the destruction of the whole
Orthodox Church by these spiritual robbers, and only because they have put
on the mask of masters of the House of God, although you yourself know that
they are criminals.
“No, this will be, not a blinding of the heart, but the opposite – the defence
of the Truth of God, and not a schism. Remember also the words of another
confessor, St. Maximus, who said: ‘Even if the whole inhabited earth were to
commune with the apostate Patriarch, I alone will not commune with him to
the end of the age.’ By the Grace of God we shall imitate this confessor…”
On January 18, Bishop Victor was summoned to the Vyatka OGPU, but
was released after answering a series of questions. On returning home, he
wrote “The Replies of his Grace Victor to 15 questions put to him by the
OGPU”. He gave this document to his acquaintances, “for information on the
new synodal movement”. The first two questions and replies were as follows:
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