photo from B. Alexandrov
Moscow, June 26, Interfax — Members of the Orthodox Parish of the Dormition at the Russian Embassy in Beijing and Russian diplomats celebrated the memory of 222 Chinese martyrs.
On Sunday, the Day of Martyrs, the divine liturgy was celebrated in the territory of the community, and on the eve of the day, Archpriest Dionisy Pozdnyayev conducted a requiem service at the devotion cross, which was installed last April at the spot where the Russian Mission's Church of All the Holy Martyrs used to stand, the official website of the Moscow Patriarchate has reported on Tuesday.
The remains of 222 Orthodox Chinese glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church as locally venerated saints were buried in the crypt of that church ruined in 1957.
Participants in the Boxer Rebellion in China in summer 1900 declared a fight with foreign influence as one of their aims. Among those who were killed in the rebellion were not only foreign preachers, technicians, merchants and scientists but also Chinese officials, soldiers, officers and peasants. Especially popular among the rebels were slogans calling to struggle with the Christian Church and reprisals against Chinese converts to Christianity who were regarded as betrayers.
Several thousand Orthodox Chinese[1] were killed in those days in Beijing. Later the remains of 222 people were found and identified, among them Holy Martyr Mitrophan, who was ordained by St. Nicholas of Japan, as well as his wife Tatyana and their children. They became the first Orthodox Chinese martyrs included into the list of saints.
[1] The claim of several thousand Orthodox Chinese were killed is unsubstantiated. The original article in Russian stated several hundred, not thousand, were killed. One of the earlier reports stated: "All together, of the one thousand souls that comprised its flock, the Mission lost three hundred. Some of them apostatized, but others, two hundred twenty-two in number, were radiant confessors and martyrs for the Christian faith." The First Chinese Orthodox Martyrs, Chinese Herald (June, 1935).