“Our hardships force us — exhausted, oppressed, and frightened — to bend our knee and pray for the Holy Spirit to strengthen the Church, to bring her out of this mournful state … and to inspire in her a new supernatural vigor,” writes Metropolitan Josyf to the Church declared liquidated and non-existent by Soviet officials. The experience of the first-generation followers of Christ was being repeated, and the blessings they received were being multiplied. As St. Peter wrote to the persecuted: “But rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Pt 4:13–14).