Orthodox History

Ground is broken for the new Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Canton, Ohio.

He was nailed to the floor of the temple. He lived for a long time. Red-hot rods were slowly driven into his body, until one of them pierced his heart. It is said that this is how Sylvester (Olshevsky), Bishop of Omsk, died in February 1920.   Bishop Tikhon (Nikanorov) of Voronezh was crucified at the Royal Gates.  Bishop Andronik of Perm was buried alive in a hole he was forced to dig himself. Bishop Hermogen of Tobolsky was tied to a ship's wheel and drowned.   Bishop Seraphim (Chichagov) was shot while on a stretcher at the Butovo firing range, because the almost 90-year-old man could no longer walk. Grand Duchess Elizabeth and the foreigner Barbara were thrown alive into a deep mine in Alapaevsk. Bishop Benjamin of Petrogradsky and several other laymen with him were shot after an apparent false trial regarding the seizure of church values.  Priest Peter Skipetrov was shot in the face in the Alexander-Nevskaya Lavra.  Metropolitan Vladimir (Epiphany) of Kiev was dragged out of the walls of the Kiev Lavra, shot, and pierced with pikes, while the bishop was blessing his tormentors. The elderly ascetic, Latvian Bishop John (Pommer), was tied to a door removed from its hinges, laid on a support, brutally stretched, and then burned alive.  Bishop Faddey of Tversk was drowned in filth. Ural priest Alexei Merkuryev was shot in front of his parish, daughter, and son.  Bishop Theophanes of Solikamsk had his hair braided, and after iron rods were driven through them, he was slowly lowered into an icy breach on the Kama River. His body was covered with ice. But the saint was still alive, so he was drowned.  Some priests and laymen had their hands tied behind their backs, were blindfolded, and ordered to walk on the ice until the victims fell into the hole. The torturers called them "divers."  The holy prisoners of the Solovets camp had their mustaches and beards pulled out; they were starved to death...  There are not enough pages nor tears to describe everything that our land experienced just recently—just yesterday.  I have mentioned only a drop in the ocean of spilled blood of the holy new martyrs whose memorial day is today.  Hundreds of thousands of priests and laymen were killed and crucified for loyalty to Christ. More than two thousand are canonized confessors, but how many more are known only to God?  And it was not just a struggle with a political enemy. It was hell itself coming out. Because only those who do not know the bottom of their evil demons can torture people so.  The scale, power, and ruthlessness of the Soviet persecutions of the Church is shown in a single figure: of almost 80,000 temples and monasteries at the beginning of the twentieth century, by 1939, barely a hundred parishes remained on the entire vast Russian territory. Not a single monastery, not a single seminary, hardly a single bishop at large, only a scattered handful of monks...  Do you know a greater miracle than the fact that the Church was revived after this hell?  You know a miracle greater than what is happening right now before our eyes: the resurrection of the Church, almost from its foundations, the multiplication of believers, again thousands of temples, hundreds of bishops... monasteries growing all over the earth again, monks inhabiting them again.  My generation will not see a greater miracle. Until 40 years ago, our fathers laughed and did not believe us when we told them it would be like this.  But this became possible only through the blood of the new martyrs. They gave their lives, often under terrible torture, to preserve the Church, so that we can take communion today, get to know God, or just live in Russia.  Because Russia exists only as long as the Russian Church exists. That means everyone living in Russia is obligated to the new martyrs—people of absolutely all faiths and views.  We are here because they died for us.  Pray to God for us, holy new martyrs and confessors of Russia!

What religious tradition has the largest families? I restricted the sample to just people who had at least 1 child. Orthodox Christians and Muslims are clear outliers: They have about 4 children each. The groups at the bottom: Jews, Agnostics, Atheists - about 2 kids.