by Joachim Wertz
The twentieth century has seen the crowning of a multitude of martyrs. Holy Russia, from the time of the Bolshevik revolution to the present, has given us millions of new heavenly intercessors, champions of the faith. This is well known to the entire Orthodox Church. Unfortunately, many Orthodox Christians are ignorant of the sufferings of the nearly 750,000 Orthodox Serbian Christians who gave their lives in the defense and confession of the faith during the time of the last world war in the so-called "Independent State of Croatia" and in other parts of German-occupied Yugoslavia at the hands of the Croatian Nationalists and other enemies of the Orthodox Church, at the instigation of and with the open participation of the Latin clergy. This persecution was aimed at the complete elimination of the Orthodox Church in these areas. Attempts at forced conversion to Catholicism were joined to a systematic and completely overt destruction of every trace of Orthodoxy. All of this was done in such a fierce and inconceivably brutal manner and in such a short span of time and relatively small geographic area that it is difficult even to imagine. Indeed the characteristics of this recent persecution are unprecedented in the history of the Church after the persecutions of the first centuries. The sacrifice and memory of these martyrs must not be allowed to remain hidden, known only to their fellow Orthodox countrymen, but should be published and commemorated for the edification of all Orthodox Christians.
Read the entire excerpt from his book here.
Also highly recommended:
Sevtlana Novko's Journal and Byzantine Sacred Art Blog
The New Martyrs of Kosovo by Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes
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