The Persecution of 1918
The year 1918 marked the opening of a sustained campaign against the Orthodox Church in the former Russian Empire. Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev, killed in January 1918, was the first bishop to be martyred, and in the years that followed bishops, priests, monastics, and laypeople were arrested, imprisoned, and executed in large numbers across the country.
Sergius, Basil, Philip, and Vladimir were among the parish clergy who lost their lives in this first year of the persecution. Their commemoration alongside Bishop Pimen of the Semirechye and Verny diocese associates them with the Church's witness in the Turkestan region during the Bolshevik takeover of Central Asia.