The total number of Christian victims of Soviet state atheist policies, has been estimated to range between 12-20 million.
In 1922, the Solovki Camp of Special Purpose, the first Russian concentration camp and a former Orthodox monastery, was established in the Solovki Islands in the White Sea. In the years 1917–1935, 130,000 Russian Orthodox priests were arrested; 95,000 were put to death, executed by firing squad. Father Pavel Florensky, exiled in 1928 and executed in 1937, was one of the New-martyrs of this particular period.
In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, an English journalist estimated that 28 bishops and 1,215 priests were executed. Recently released evidence indicates over 8,000 were killed in 1922 during the conflict over church valuables.
During the purges of 1937 and 1938, church documents record that 168,300 Russian Orthodox clergy were arrested. Of these, over 100,000 were shot...
