Among the Synaxis of New Martyrs of Russia
The Russian Orthodox Church commemorates all who suffered under the Soviet regime in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, kept on the Sunday closest to January 25. The commemoration traces back to a resolution of the Local Council of 1918, which set an annual memorial for the confessors and martyrs of the persecution. At the Jubilee Bishops' Council of 2000 more than a thousand New Martyrs were formally glorified by name, and the Church teaches that their number far exceeds that of all the martyrs of the first three Christian centuries.
Priests such as Sergius, Joseph and Alexis belong to this broad company. Their individual feast on September 9 preserves their memory within that wider host, even where the particulars of their lives — their parishes, the circumstances of their arrest, and the place of their execution — are not recorded in the sources available.