Russia's Christians recall their gulag martyrs

Catholic church in Moscow, opened 1911, closed by Communist authorities 1937. Reopened 1999. Wiki image. Faustinian

When the centenary of the Bolshevik revolution falls this autumn, Christian communities across the former Soviet Union will commemorate the persecutions it unleashed upon them, Jonathan Luxmoore writes in the National Catholic Reporter.

But they'll also recall the religious meditations born in the country's prisons and labor camps, some of which deserve to rank with the best in Christian history.

"Soviet-era sufferings affected not just the churches but the whole of society, atheists included," said Mgr Igor Kovalevsky, secretary-general of Russia's Catholic Bishops' Conference.

"Secular writers like Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Nadhezda Mandelstam may have become the most famous. But themes of witness and martyrdom also run through the gulag literature and are universally recognized and respected."

To read on see: www.ncronline.org/news/spirituality/russias-catholics-recall-their-gulag-martyrs-100-years-after-lenins-revolution