Excerpt from a letter we received from His Grace Bishop Benjamin, from Ekaterinburg, Russia.
Beloved brothers and sisters, helpers of the Icon’s House and parishioners of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Washington!
We sincerely thank you for your efforts in the work of establishing the Church of Christ, for the "Church has grown on the blood of Martyrs." The murdered Brother Joseph is a true neo-martyr of the Church of Christ. In telling about him, you are preaching the crucified Lord whom Joseph emulated to the end, to his own death.
We were shaken by the manner of his martyric death, and initially, we felt indignation. "How long, O Lord, holy and true dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" (Revelation 6:10). However, we soon rejoiced with a calm, interior joy over the appearance of a new light, standing before the Throne of Our Lord, and over the fact that his martyrdom had disgraced satan, who through this murder demonstrated his impotence. "And white robes were given unto every one of them, and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants and brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled." (Revelation 6:11).
Here in Russia, enrobed in the blood of the neo-martyrs, where the voice of the blood of each of those martyred for Christ cries out to Heaven, martyrdom appears to be for everyone the final and only calling to which we are invited by the Lord.
Not long before Brother Joseph’s death, Fr. Alexander Zharkov, a priest of our Church in St. Petersburg, was brutally murdered; a little earlier, another priest in the Belgorod region, Fr. Paul Katunin, was beaten. We are "persecuted, but not forsaken," (2 Corinthians 4:9, for the Lord does not abandon us.
Dear parishioners of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist! May the Lord save you for sending us the album of photographs of Brother Joseph. We will try to show it to as many of the faithful here in Russia as possible.
Each day at the Liturgy we commemorate "the murdered Joseph," and hope in his intercession before God for us sinners.
Bishop Benjamin, together with our brethren and spiritual children
10/23 January 1998
Ekaterinburg