Monumen ini berlokasi di alun-alun Shuya, di depan Katedral Kebangkitan Kristus. Dibuat untuk mengenang orang-orang yang terbunuh selama perlawanan penyitaan perhiasan dan harta benda dari gereja untuk membantu orang-orang yang kelaparan.
Penyitaan ini menimbulkan perlawanan karena memasukkan barang-barang yang ditujukan khusus untuk keperluan liturgi. Selain itu beberapa pendeta juga mengorganisir perlawanan terhadap penyitaan perhiasan gereja.
Pemerintah Soviet mengeluarkan Dekrit Pemisahan Gereja dari Negara Bagian dan Sekolah dari Gereja pada 5 Februari 1918 yang menyebutkan bahwa semua properti yang ada pada Gereja Ortodoks Rusia dan organisasi keagamaan lainnya akan disita untuk negara kecuali bangunan dan benda yang digunakan secara khusus untuk keperluan liturgi. Bangunan dan benda yang terkait dengan liturgi tersebut masih dapat digunakan melalui ketetapan khusus dari pemerintah lokal atau pusat.[1][2]
Keputusan ini menyebabkan ketidakpuasan dari berbagai pihak sehingga akibatnya sekelompok orang mencoba melakukan perlawanan ketika beberapa perwakilan negara akan mendaftar properti gereja dan biara. Perlawanan tersebut berakhir dengan sebuah persidangan.[3]
Tanggal 23 Februari 1922, Komite Eksekutif Pusat Seluruh Rusia mengeluarkan dekrit "Tentang Penyitaan Perhiasan Gereja" [4] yang memerintahkan agar pemerintah setempat mengambil semua benda berharga yang ada di gereja-gereja dan kemudian mengirimkannya ke Central Fund for the Relief of the Starving.
Seorang pendeta yang bernama Patriark Tikhon juga ikut menghalangi kegiatan penyitaan tersebut.[5][6] Ia mengeluarkan seruan pada 28 Februari 1922[7] yang isinya antara lain adalah melarang penyitaan benda-benda suci dan menyebut tindakan ini sebagai pencurian benda-benda suci. Untuk memperkuat pendapatnya, Patriark merujuk pada 73 kanon para rasul [8] serta 10 kanon Dewan Protodeutera.[9][10][11]
Akibat dari pesannya tersebut maka terjadi bentrokan antara perwakilan pemerintah dan umat Kristiani.[12] Bentrokan bersenjata paling terkenal terjadi di Shuya, dimana sekelompok orang dengan bersenjatakan kayu berusaha menghalangi perwakilan pemerintah yang akan merebut perhiasan gereja. Akibat dari peristiwa tersebut, Patriark Tikhon dan pengikutnya kemudian disidang.[13]
Penyitaan harta gereja tersebut selesai pada 26 Mei 1922.
The New York Times melaporkan bahwa sebanyak delapan imam, dua orang awam dan satu wanita dijatuhi hukuman mati di Moskow pada 8 Mei 1922 akibat menolak penyitaan tersebut.[14]
Catatan
^ abПравославие: Словарь атеиста / Под ред. Н. С. Гордиенко. — М.: Политиздат, 1988. — 270[2] с.; 17 см.; ISBN5-250-00079-7 : / Стр. 89
^Православие: Словарь атеиста / Под ред. Н. С. Гордиенко. — М.: Политиздат, 1988. — 270[2] с.; 17 см.; ISBN5-250-00079-7 : / Стр. 240
^Атеистический словарь / [Абдусамедов А. И., Алейник Р. М., Алиева Б. А. и др. ; под общ. ред. М. П. Новикова]. - 2-е изд., испр. и доп. - Москва : Политиздат, 1985. - 512 с.; 20 см / С. 446
^Canon LXXIII: «Let no one convert to his own use any vessel of gold or silver, or any veil which has been sanctified, for it is contrary to law; and if anyone be detected doing so, let him be excommunicated». – The Canons of the Holy and Altogether August Apostles
^Canon 10: Those who appear to be victims of their own passions not only do not shudder at the thought of the punishment provided by the sacred Canons, but have actually dared to laugh them to scorn. For they distort themselves, and in conformity with their venomous nature they forge their will awry; in order that thanks to the magnanimity of their venom, according to St. Gregory the Theologian, not only may the evil be kept from affecting their responsibility, but may even be thought something divine. For this holds true in the case of the Apostolic Canon which says that no one shall appropriate any golden or silver vessel that has been sanctified, or any piece of cloth, to his own use. For that would be unlawful. If anyone be caught doing so, let him be disciplined with excommunication. Taking this Canon to be in effect an advocacy of their own unlawful deeds, they allege that one must not deem those men worthy of deposition who employ the venerable tablecloth of the Holy Table to make a tunic for themselves or reshape it into any other vestment. Not only so, but not even those who employ the holy chalice. Oh, what impiety! or the venerable paten; or things akin to these, because they expend them for needs of their own, or defile them outright. For the Canon says that those who become guilty of this are to be punished with excommunication, but has made no one liable to deposition for such an act. But who would tolerate the magnitude of any such perversion and impiety? For notwithstanding that the Canon inflicts excommunication upon those who merely use what is sanctified, but do not appropriate it to the extent of purloining it entirely, they, on the other hand, exempt from deposition those who plunder and sacrilege the equipment of the Holies of Holies, and as for those who pollute the venerable patens or sacred cups by putting them into use for the serving of food, so far at any rate as they rely upon their own judgment, they rank them as undeposed, notwithstanding that the contamination has become apparent to all, and it is plain that those who do such things not only incur liability to deposition from office, but even become subject to charges of committing the worst kind of ungodliness. Wherefore the holy Council has decreed that (those who purloin for their own profit, or who misuse for some unsacred purpose, in general any one of the sacred and holy vessels or utensils in the sacrificial altar, or of the vestments, or the holy chalice, or the paten, or the tongs, or the venerable tablecloth, and the so-called “air”),i are to be compelled to undergo total and complete deposition. For one charge is that of having profaned, and the other charge is that of having plundered the holies. As touching those, however, who convert to an unsacred use for themselves, or bestow upon another person, consecrated vessels or vestments outside of the sacrificial altar, the Canon excommunicates them and we join in excommunicating them. But as for those who utterly purloin them and take them away we make them liable to condemnation as sacrilegists. – The Canons of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The so called First-Second Council – 861.Diarsipkan 2020-11-11 di Wayback Machine.
