Memory of the Chinese Martyrs

The day of memory of the holy Chinese martyrs celebrate in Beijing

The feast day of the hieromartyr Mitrophan of Beijing and the 221 holy Chinese martyrs who suffered with him is celebrated in Beijing. Divine services at the site of their martyrdom, where the Embassy of the Russian Federation in China is now located (the former territory of the Russian Spiritual Mission in Beijing) was performed by Archpriest Dionysiy Pozdnyaev, rector of the Hong Kong parish of the Russian Orthodox Church. In a cermon on the occasion of the holiday, he noted that the blood of the Chinese martyrs was the founding of the Orthodox Church in China, whose history in the twentieth century was tragic. Mother Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, which itself experienced the years of persecutions in Russia and is strengthened by the prayers and deed of its new martyrs, having the experience of rebirth, bears the care of normalizing the position of the Orthodox Church in China serving both the Russian people living in China and the Chinese Orthodox Christians. Archpriest Dionisy Pozdnyaev also noted that the holiness of the Chinese martyrs is a pledge of the prayerful intercession of the Saints before the Throne of God about the entire people of China, God's blessing over the country and for all who live in it.
The Russian Orthodox Church began to venerate the Chinese martyrs as local saints in 1902. Since 2016, their general church veneration in the Saints' face has been established with the commemoration of their memorial day on June 23, the day of the anniversary of their martyr's death.



Service to the Holy Protomartyrs of China (English/Chinese)