"I grew up in the society where just for mentioning the name of God you could be taken to prison, and where tyrants were elevated into idols of universal worship and people had no freedom to express their belief.
More than a thousand monastaries were in Russia before the revolution and all of them
destroyed by communists, who killed over 60 million people. Hundreds of thousands of people were suffering in the conentration camps. Trying to kill the faith, communists closed the majority of the Churches and religion was declared the "opium of the people". The seeds of nihilism brought forth fruits of ungodliness and lawlessness. People experienced living hell everyday, and they had no way out. Nevertheless, many people chose the wayof martyrdom because they loved Christ. And their motherland once again was bleeding innocently
That was in Russia--a land with deep Orthodox roots.
Another side of the same diamond -- which was nihilism, the spirit of despair and ungodliness -- appeared in America. The Prince of this world -- Lucifer -- chose another was to kill the spirit of truth. He gave people external freedom in order to get their souls. And he almost succeeded. Modern Christianity has lost the idea of suffering, the idea of the cross, and offers people a high-tech and "happy-life-without-thinking" substitue: Christianity without the Cross. And people buy it. The foe of humankind wants to convince us that we can be happy and live as we want, and that the only thing we wish is that others would be like us. But this happiness is nothing but "having fun", and the goal is to take away the true path of God. But you cannot be happy if you do not know what suffering is. You cannot love your fellow human beings if you don't carry your cross.
Let us take our crosses and, with absolute abandonment of the ways of this world, let us follow Christ on the way to heaven. Many difficulties will we face on this way. But let us not look for the easy ways because easy ways lead to the death of the soul and we are not called to kill souls but to save them"

-Vladimir
Moscow, Russia



Flowers of the spiritual meadow of Russia,
who shone forth in the hour of evil persecutions,
O countless New Martyrs and Confessors,
hierarchs, Royal Passion-bearers and pastors,
monastics and laymen, men, women and children,
who brought forth good fruit to Christ in your patience,
pray to Him, as the One Who planted you,
that He may deliver His people from the godless and evil ones,
that the Russian Church may be established
upon your blood and sufferings
unto the salvation of our souls.