Forwarded from Election Wizard
In the bitter winter of 1937, deep in the snow-bound forest of the Butovo firing range outside Moscow, another truckload of prisoners arrived under cover of darkness. Among them were priests, some young, some aged, including an old bishop whose beard glittered with frost.
The Communist NKVD guards, faces muffled against the cold, marched them to the edge of a long trench already half-filled with the fallen. The ground was frozen solid; the pit waited like an open wound in the earth.
As rifles were raised, the bishop lifted his voice in the Paschal troparion:
“Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death…”
The other priests joined without pause, their hymn rising clear and unbroken against the wind: no cries, no begging, only the ancient proclamation of resurrection.
An officer shouted for silence and struck the bishop across the face. Blood stained the snow, but the old man met his gaze steadily.
“We forgive you, my children,” he said quietly, “for you do not know what you do.”
The shooting began. As each priest fell into the trench, the next took up the hymn exactly where it had left off, the melody passing unbroken from voice to voice until only the bishop remained.
He made the sign of the Cross over the executioners, sang the final line alone, and stepped forward. The last shot echoed into silence.
This particular scene, of chained singing and whispered forgiveness at the pit’s edge, circulates as pious legend among the stories of the New Martyrs. It may not be a verifiable historical fact in the strict sense.
What is certain is far grimmer: at Butovo, during the Great Terror of 1937–1938, more than 20,000 people were executed and buried in mass graves. Among them were hundreds of Orthodox clergy, priests, monks, and bishops, rounded up in waves, accused of counter-revolutionary activity for their faith, and killed with ruthless efficiency. The brutality was real: night transports in “black ravens,” firing squads, shallow trenches layered with bodies, no mercy shown.
A church now stands over the site, its foundations holding small crosses and relics recovered from the earth, a quiet testimony to Christians who were murdered for refusing to renounce their Lord.
Their deaths, whether sung in legend or borne in silence, proclaim the same truth: death could not silence the resurrection.
Christ is risen. Indeed, He is risen! ☦️
https://x.com/electionwiz/status/2015429069098111402?s=46&t=MRsSpiGJq0d9cgNcH7cVqA
The Communist NKVD guards, faces muffled against the cold, marched them to the edge of a long trench already half-filled with the fallen. The ground was frozen solid; the pit waited like an open wound in the earth.
As rifles were raised, the bishop lifted his voice in the Paschal troparion:
“Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death…”
The other priests joined without pause, their hymn rising clear and unbroken against the wind: no cries, no begging, only the ancient proclamation of resurrection.
An officer shouted for silence and struck the bishop across the face. Blood stained the snow, but the old man met his gaze steadily.
“We forgive you, my children,” he said quietly, “for you do not know what you do.”
The shooting began. As each priest fell into the trench, the next took up the hymn exactly where it had left off, the melody passing unbroken from voice to voice until only the bishop remained.
He made the sign of the Cross over the executioners, sang the final line alone, and stepped forward. The last shot echoed into silence.
This particular scene, of chained singing and whispered forgiveness at the pit’s edge, circulates as pious legend among the stories of the New Martyrs. It may not be a verifiable historical fact in the strict sense.
What is certain is far grimmer: at Butovo, during the Great Terror of 1937–1938, more than 20,000 people were executed and buried in mass graves. Among them were hundreds of Orthodox clergy, priests, monks, and bishops, rounded up in waves, accused of counter-revolutionary activity for their faith, and killed with ruthless efficiency. The brutality was real: night transports in “black ravens,” firing squads, shallow trenches layered with bodies, no mercy shown.
A church now stands over the site, its foundations holding small crosses and relics recovered from the earth, a quiet testimony to Christians who were murdered for refusing to renounce their Lord.
Their deaths, whether sung in legend or borne in silence, proclaim the same truth: death could not silence the resurrection.
Christ is risen. Indeed, He is risen! ☦️
https://x.com/electionwiz/status/2015429069098111402?s=46&t=MRsSpiGJq0d9cgNcH7cVqA
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Election Wizard (@ElectionWiz) on X
In the bitter winter of 1937, deep in the snow-bound forest of the Butovo firing range outside Moscow, another truckload of prisoners arrived under cover of darkness. Among them were priests, some young, some aged, including an old bishop whose beard glittered…
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