Hello all! Thanks for letting me join. May Anna and all the holy new martyrs of the 20th and 21st centuries pray for us. Christ is Born! Christ is Baptized!

Life of New Martyr Anna of Kurd
☦️ January 4

Anna M.Kaloyan is one of New Martyrs who suffered for Christ in contemporary post-Soviet time.

Anna Kaloyan was born on December 18, 1987 in a Kurdish Yezidi family and lived in Bazkovskaya village of Sholokhov district in Rostov region. In autumn 2012 the girl accepted Christ and converted to Christianity.

Valery Kharitonov, the senior priest of Sretensky monastery, administered Sacrament of baptism. Anna became an active parishioner notwithstanding threats from her Yezidi relatives and tried to spend all her free time in the church. She was helpful and eager to do any chores. The girl’s parents, her relatives and all Yezidi community were trying to persuade Anna to deny Christ and to return to Yezidi religion, but all their attempts to force her to do it which included beatings and threatenings were in vain.

With the beginning of the Nativity fast Anna often confessed and took Holy communion. She was preparing to celebrate Christmas and sewed herself a beautiful dress, but she was not destined to experience the holiday joy on earth. In the early hours of January 4, 2013 the girl was harried to death by her own parents. At first they broke Anna’s legs so that she couldn’t run away, then her father started to beat her entire body with steel rods while mother was hitting her head with a wood log. Each blow was accompanied with the demand to deny Christ, but each time all the way to her death the martyr firmly refused to do it. first communion dresses

Thus, on the day when Holy Church celebrates the feast of Anastasia of Sermium, Anna Kaloyan sufferd martyrdom for the love of Christ at the hands of her own parents. The martyr’s father pledged himself guilty for the murder of his daughter and was sentenced to 7 years in prison. The martyr was buried near village Verkhnetokinsky in Yezidi cemetery away from Yezidi graves. The martyr’s grave is honored by Orthodox Christians.

I was able to speak to Vasiliy Khadykin, the archpriest of Shakhtinskaya Episcopate, and he reported thatat Verkhny Don Anna Kaloyan is honored as a Holy Martyr. As the head of Episcopate committee for Saints canonization he is gathering material for glorifying the New Martyr in Russian Orthodox Church.

monk Madai (Maamdi)
Source: «Five years of ministry» -Shakhtinskaya Episcopate, p. 92