This book is a collection of one hundred lives of holy martyrs and confessors who suffered for Christ in the Russian Church in the twentieth century. The roll-call begins with the murder of Great Prince Sergius Alexandrovich, the uncle of the tsar, in 1905, at the beginning of the abortive 1905 revolution, and ends with the death of the most recent confessor, Archimandrite Nectarius of Alexandria (Ukraine) and Jerusalem, at the beginning of what might be called the third Russian revolution, that of Putin. An introductory chapter describes the significance of the feat of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia for our time.

The new martyrs and confessors number in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, and the lives recorded in this book constitute only a small portion of them. They have been selected according to three main criteria: their importance in the history of the Church in this period, their diversity in space and time, in rank and occupation, and the intrinsic interest and instructiveness of their lives. Very many lives of equal interest have had to be omitted from what is already a very large book, which is highly regrettable. Nevertheless, we can only rejoice in such an embarras de richesse. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, and of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors, Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us!

October 19 /November 1, 2020. St. John of Kronstadt.