Throughout Church history, there have been critical moments when the hierarchs of a local church have apostatized from Holy Orthodoxy, leaving the faithful uncertain about whom to follow and where the True Church is to be found. In 20th-century Russia, a formidable enemy of the Church arose in the form of totalitarian atheistic communism. This threat intensified when Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky usurped the patriarchal throne, issued his infamous and heretical Declaration of 1927, and submitted the Church to an anti-Christian regime. At this pivotal moment, God raised up Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd, a confessor of Holy Orthodoxy, who would lead the True Church into the Catacombs.

For decades before the revolution and following his execution, little was known about the life of Hieromartyr Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd, who was murdered in a ravine near Shymkent on November 20th , 1937, by order of the Soviet secret police. Opposing the reform of Church-state relations, which aimed to destroy the Church from within and was facilitated by the Declaration and subsequent actions of Metropolitan Sergius, Saint Joseph was unjustly accused of delusion, schism, heresy, and pride. His followers, disparagingly called the ”Josephites,” were labeled as counter-revolutionaries and subjected to intense persecution by the Soviet government and the Soviet-created Moscow Patriarchate, which to this day has refused to recognize his canonization by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad under Saint Philaret of New York in 1981.

This never-before-translated work presents a meticulously researched collection of historical facts and testimonies, including the personal accounts of Saint Joseph and other new martyrs and confessors of Russia. These narratives reveal that, despite enduring continuous slander, persecution, arrest, and exile at the hands of both the Soviet regime and Sergianist elements within the Church who capitulated to state control, Saint Joseph remained resolutely loyal to Christ and the True Russian Orthodox Church. His unwavering confession of Holy Orthodoxy in an era marked by intense persecution from both the Soviet government and the Stalinist-created Moscow Patriarchate stands as a testament to his courage and conviction, culminating in his ultimate martyrdom as a confessor of the faith and true saint of the Russian Orthodox Church.

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