“The ancient martyrs testified to the later New Martyrs about that Truth for which they suffered and died. Their example inspired our New Martyrs. The Church offers their example to our attention, that we, inspired by their resolve, would be faithful to our Savior to the end, and that that to which the Lord so loftily calls us in the Apocalypse would be fulfilled in our lives: ‘Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life’.”
(Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow,  ‘Preaching’)