His Holiness Patriarch Alexy conducts service at Botovo shooting field

On May 5, the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church conducted a divine service at the Botovo shooting field near Moscow. Over four thousand people came to the Butovo shooting field to honour the memory of those innocent people who were executed there for their faith in Christ at the time of trial.

The commemoration of the new martyrs who were killed in Butovo takes place every fourth Sunday after Easter. Over 20 thousand names are included in the martyrology of those who were shot to death and buried in 1937 and 1938 at the NKVD’s ‘Butovo Facility’. But the exact number of the tortured and killed there is still unknown.

On that day, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia led the divine service in the open. He was assisted by an assembly of bishops. He celebrated the divine liturgy and conducted a prayer service, after which he addressed the congregation with a primatial homily.

His Holiness called upon all the Orthodox people to turn with prayer to Russia’s New Martyrs and Confessors, so that they may ‘give strength to our Church, our earthly homeland and us all in our vigil for the truth and in our confidence in the future of our Motherland’.

‘The foundation of spiritual life laid down through the intercession of saints and confessors of the Church of Christ will ensure a dignified future for Russia and our people. The Church asserts itself through the blood of martyrs, and the spiritual revival now taking place in Russia after decades of theomachism is accomplished through the intercession of those who bore witness to their faith until they dies martyrs’ death.

His Holiness also called upon the faithful to pray for those who were buried in the Butovo shooting field as those who suffered for their faith and for the truth but have not yet been glorified by the Church among the saints. After that he conducted a requiem service.