Pochaev, July 21, 2017
Photo: pochaiv.pp.ua Along with the entire Russian and broader Orthodox Church, the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate celebrated the memory of the holy Royal Martyrs, killed by the Bolsheviks 99 years ago in 1918, on July 17. In a message posted on the monastery’s site for the feast of All Saints of the Russian Land, the fathers of the monastery speak of their hope in the restoration of the Orthodox monarchy and the importance of venerating all the Russian New Martyrs who suffered under Soviet rule, and especially the Royal Martyrs, and urged the faithful to pray for Russia, which is subjected to a “satanic program.”
Despite the monastery’s location in Western Ukraine, in the Ternopil Region, where anti-Russian sentiment runs high, it continues to consider itself part of the Russian world and to pray for the salvation of Russia.
“He who truly loves Russia cannot but see that the Lord has gifted it a new guardian angel—Tsar Nicholas Alexandrovich,” reads the message on the lavra’s site. “The tsar accepted suffering with all the Orthodox people, and now he abides together with them. He gave his life and the life of his children for Orthodox Rus’, and now he has a special boldness to intercede for it before the Lord. Has the satanic program of Russia’s decomposition truly not yet reached its peak? Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And how they harness and trample these fields!” the message exclaims. And, counting themselves among the inhabitants of Holy Rus’, the monastery brethren continue, “Now more than ever our suffering Motherland is in need of the prayers of the Royal Passion-bearers.”
“The glorification of the Royal Passion-bearers and all the Russian New Martyrs and Confessors should be an act of repentance for all Orthodox people, and of our full and authentic separation from the revolution, continuing not just for seventy years as they say, but until today,” the message continues. But it is not enough just to have canonized the saints, the lavra exhorts: “But without prayer to the new saints, their canonization will be fruitless, and all the talks about building the state on Christian foundations, about the salvation of Russia, and about the restoration of the Orthodox monarchy will be fruitless.”
“Only when the glorified tsar will see that our sorrow is for God will he draw us nearer to God, and not any humanly-appointed leader. It is not without cause that God allows all of today’s horrors to be committed,” the message encourages.
Echoing the Lord’s words that the faithful will know the persecution, the message reminds that such suffering is a sign of true faith: “The clash between the world and Christ is the substance of all that is done in the world, and sooner or later it will reach its limit. The world, lying in evil, always, and especially in times of lawlessness, must drown out the true Christian conscience, which does not allow us to live peaceably, any way it can… In the time of the antichrist, persecution can become the last sign of true Christianity.”
