Icon of chinese orthodox Martyrs. Murdered during Boxer Rebellion (1900). Canonized before 1917.
The Boxer Rebellion is one of the little known historical pages of Russian Spiritual Mission in China. The year 1900 is known as the time of the most active activity of the Yihetuan – mostly a religious movement called the Boxer Rebellion following the incorrect British translation. Directed against foreigners, its ideology lay in anti-Christianity. When the uprising enveloped the entire capital, Director of the Russian Spiritual Mission, Archimandrite Innocent (Figurovskii, future Metropolitan of Beijing and China) left Beiguan with his collaborators and moved to the Russian embassy. Along with the church accessories they brought with them an ancient icon of St. Nicholas of Mozhaisk, brought from Albazin by Fr. Maxim Leontiev back in 1685. Chinese government allotted 10 pikemen to guard the Mission, but on June 11 it was burned to the ground, destroying its library, archive and sacristy. Yihetuans have tortured to death 222 Orthodox Chinese, which are considered the first Chinese martyrs. Among them – hieromartyr Metrophanes, first Chinese priest consecrated in Japan by its enlightener, St. Nicholas. By the intercessions of the Mission’s Director, the Holy Synod has appointed a liturgical celebration to the holy Chinese New-Martyrs (Decree №2874 from April 22, 1902). Their holy relics, many of which turned out to be incorrupt, were buried in the crypt of the new church dedicated to All Martyrs. The “Praise” following their lives is written by Archimandrite Avraamii (Chasovnikov), who, together with Archimandrite Innocent, was a witness of the horrors of the Boxer Rebellion. The “Praise to the slain” was first published in “Izvestiia Bratstva Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi v Kitae”, №8 (July 1, 1905). – Ed.
1. Before Christ we all shared the same ancestral curse and condemnation poured out on all of us from our single forefather, as if it had sprung from the root of the human race and was the common lot of our nature. Each person’s individual action attracted either reproof or praise from God, but no one could do anything about the shared curse and condemnation, or the evil inheritance that had been passed down to him and through him would pass to his descendants.
2. But Christ came, setting human nature free and changing the common curse into a shared blessing. He took upon Himself our guilty nature from the most pure Virgin and united it, new and unmixed with the old seed, to His divine person. He rendered it guiltless and righteous, so that all His spiritual descendants would remain outside the ancestral curse and condemnation. How so? He shares His grace with each one of us as a person, and each receives forgiveness of his sins from Him. For He did not receive from us a human person, but assumed our human nature and renewed it by uniting it with His own person. His wish was to save us all completely and for our sake He bowed the heavens and came down. When by His deeds, words and sufferings He had pointed out all the ways of salvation, He went up to heaven again, drawing after Him those who trusted in Him. His aim was to grant perfect redemption not just to the nature which He had assumed from us in inseparable union, but to each one of those who believed in Him. This He has done and continues to do, reconciling each of us through Himself to the Father, bringing each one back to obedience and thoroughly healing our disobedience.
God is with us, understand, O ye nations, and submit yourselves: for God is with us!
These words were sung triumphantly and joyfully at the very beginning of the service on the Eve of Nativity. They were pronounced many centuries before the Nativity of Christ by the great Prophet Isaiah. At that time, the whole world was sunk in the darkness of idolatry. Only in the small Jewish nation in the small country of Palestine was there a flicker of the true knowledge of God, but all the other millions of people were pagan. Enlightened by the Holy Spirit, the Prophet Isaiah saw far into the future through this darkness of idolatry, and what was to take place a long time later to him was already accomplished, and he says, “God is with us, understand, O ye nations”.
Many centuries went by until this wonder of wonders that the Prophet Isaiah foretold came to pass, and the ‘great mystery of piety’ took place. God appeared in the flesh and deigned to lie in a manger. And the Church takes us on the wings of faith and hope to Bethlehem and announces, “Christ is born, give ye glory! Christ cometh from heaven, meet ye Him! Christ is on earth, be ye exalted!”
If a tree is known by its fruit, and a good tree bears good fruit (Mt. 7:17; Lk. 6:44), then is not the Mother of Goodness Itself, She who bore the Eternal Beauty, incomparably more excellent than every good, whether in this world or the world above? Therefore, the coeternal and identical Image of goodness, Preeternal, transcending all being, He Who is the preexisting and good Word of the Father, moved by His unutterable love for mankind and compassion for us, put on our image, that He might reclaim for Himself our nature which had been dragged down to uttermost Hades, so as to renew this corrupted nature and raise it to the heights of Heaven. For this purpose, He had to assume a flesh that was both new and ours, that He might refashion us from out of ourselves. Now He finds a Handmaiden perfectly suited to these needs, the supplier of Her own unsullied nature, the Ever-Virgin now hymned by us, and Whose miraculous Entrance into the Temple, into the Holy of Holies, we now celebrate. God predestined Her before the ages for the salvation and reclaiming of our kind. She was chosen, not just from the crowd, but from the ranks of the chosen of all ages, renowned for piety and understanding, and for their God-pleasing words and deeds.
According to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, before creating the visible world the Lord God created the invisible world, i.e. the angels. Among these superior beings there occurred a battle which led to the division of all the angels into good and evil spirits. At the head of the first stood the Archangel Michael, whose feast we are now commemorating, while the second were led by one of the supreme angels who had wrongly understood his perfection. Enticing others to go along with him, he arrogantly rebelled against God. From that time on these tainted forces, having been thrown down from heaven, relentlessly do evil to people, pushing them into the abyss of sin and eternal torture in which they themselves sojourn. They are combated by the good angels, who, on the contrary, restrain man from all bad things and direct him towards salvation in the Heavenly Kingdom. As a loyal host, some of them surround the throne of God, singing continuously: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of Thy glory, while others announce God’s will to people, which is indicated by the very word “angel,” which means messenger. And, finally, there are still others who are appointed by the Lord to oversee both entire peoples and cities, as well as individuals, and they are therefore called guardian angels. Thus, one of the supreme angels was sent to Joshua in the Old Testament. Angels were sent many times to aid the Israeli judge Gideon, the prophet Elias, the prophet Daniel, and many others. In the New Testament the Archangel Gabriel brought to the Virgin Mary glad tidings of the beginning of salvation, angels announced the nativity of Christ to the shepherds, an angel warned of Herod’s evil intentions, and an angel appeared to the magi, restraining them from going back to Herod. An angel comforted the Saviour before His sufferings, and angels brought glad tidings of Christ’s resurrection to the myrrh-bearing women. Angels appeared to the apostles in prison, to Apostle Philip, to Cornelius the centurion, to Apostle Peter, and to many others. And finally, when the Son of man returns to earth in glory, He will be accompanied by all the holy angels.
As we celebrate the synaxis of the holy Archangel Michael, let us turn our pious attention to the image of the leader of the heavenly host and make use of the instruction which the Church wishes to give to all the faithful through him. On his icon we see Archangel Michael depicted in military dress. What does this mean? Why does a denizen of heaven, where peace and love reign, appear to be fully armed? In heaven, where, according to the Scriptures, nothing unclean can enter, there is undoubtedly no movement of impure passions such as we have on earth, and there is a total absence of the impure desires that cause strife among people, and, therefore, everything in heaven is peaceful and harmonious. But there was once warfare even in that kingdom of peace and love. Who rose up and fought against whom? One of the supreme spirits, who possessed the greatest perfection – Lucifer, rose up with arrogance and pride against his Creator and Master of all; he was followed by many other spirits, who made up a terrible host of disturbers of heavenly order. It was then that from the midst of the angels emerged a fighter for the glory of God – the holy Archangel Michael. Gathering all the angelic ranks and hosts that were loyal to God, he loudly cried out: “Let us stand in good faith before our Creator, and let us not take part in any revolt against God.” Then, standing at the head of the bodiless spirits, he sang the triumphant hymn: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Sabaoth!” And soon afterwards all the evil spirits were cast down from heaven.
The Resolution of the Sobor of Bishops concerning the heresy of sergianism:
«To those who affirm the antichristian sergianist heresy; to those who teach that the Church of Christ is ostensibly saved through union with Christ's enemies, who reject the podvig of martyrdom and confession of the faith, who set up a pseudo-church on the grounds of Judas, and who, for this purpose, permit the doctrine, canons and moral laws of Christianity to be violated; to those who direct Christians to worship a theomachic regime, ostensibly given by God, and to serve it not out of fear but for conscience's sake, blessing all its iniquities; to those who justify the persecution of the True Church of Christ by the theomachs, thinking that they thereby serve God, - as, indeed, did the continuators of the renovationist heresy, Metropolitan Sergii Stragorodskii and all his followers - Anathema!»
The antichrist essence of Metropolitan Sergii's Declaration of 1927 and of the heresy of sergianism. (from the reports read at the 2004 ROCA Sobor of Bishops)
