Holy Hieromartyr Alexander Adrianov (+ 1918)

St. Alexander Adrianov (Feast Day - November 12)

Father Alexander Adrianov was born in 1858 in the district of Nizhneturinsky (now the city of Nizhnyaya Tura) to the family of a priest, and from childhood he wanted to become a priest. Graduating from seminary, after a while he was ordained a priest, and for the rest of his life, for 24 years, he served the Ekaterinburg Diocese in the Three Hierarchs Church of Nizhneturinsky.

He was a very zealous, self-sacrificing pastor. Father Alexander built several churches, taught the Law of God, and was a member of various church societies. He was married to the young woman Alexandra, daughter of Vasily Lyubomudrov, priest of the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk Church in the village of Merkushino. Moreover, the wedding of Father Alexander and Alexandra took place in the village of Merkushino.

Holy 104 Martyrs of Cherkasy (+ 1937-38)

Holy 104 Martyrs of Cherkasy (Feast Day - May 26)

In the year 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized one hundred and four priests and monks who were arrested and convicted for their faith in the year 1937, in the Ukrainian city of Cherkasy. Many of them were shot, others did not return from the camps. From the documents it is clear that often sentences were handed down to people who had not yet been arrested. Church historians from Cherkasy cite only one case of the return of a clergyman from the camp.

In the 1920s, the first massive wave of repression against clergy and believers swept across the country. At that time there were still relatively few death sentences. After five or seven years of exile, many received an order forbidding them to live in large cities such as Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Kharkov. Therefore, many exiled priests and monks moved to small towns such as Cherkasy. The census of the thirty-seventh year in the country showed that two-thirds of the citizens continued to call themselves believers. On December 5, 1936, the USSR adopted the Constitution, which declared freedom of conscience, equality of rights for all citizens, universal, equal and direct elections by secret ballot... People were optimistic.

Venerable Martyr Maria of Gatchina (+ 1932)

By I. M. Andreyev

In the town of Gatchina, some thirty miles from Petrograd, there lived before the revolution the nun Maria, in the world Lydia Alexandrovna Lilyanova. From her youth, before the revolution of 1917, Matushka Maria had been ill with Parkinson's disease after suffering encephalitis (inflammation of the brain). This left her whole body as it were chained and immovable, her face anemic and like a mask. She could speak, but with a half-closed mouth, through her teeth, pronouncing the words slowly and in a monotone. She was a total invalid and in constant need of help and carefully looking after. The slightest touch caused her pain. Usually this disease proceeds with sharp psychological changes (irritability, a tiresome stubbornness in repeating stereotyped questions, an exaggerated egoism, manifestations of senility, etc.), as a result of which such patients often end up in psychiatric hospitals. But Mother Maria not only did not degenerate psychically, but revealed extraordinary features of personality and character not characteristic of such patients: she became extremely meek, humble, submissive, undemanding, concentrated in herself. She became engrossed in constant prayer, bearing her difficult condition without the least murmuring. As if as a reward for this humility and patience, the Lord sent her a gift: the consolation of the sorrowing. Completely strange and unknown people, finding themselves in sorrows, grief, despondency and depression, began to visit her and converse with her. And everyone who came to her left consoled, feeling an illumination of their grief, a pacifying of sorrow, a calming of fears, a taking away of depression and despondency. The news of this extraordinary nun gradually spread far beyond the boundaries of the city of Gatchina.

Holy Hieromartyr Alexander Tsitseronov, Known as Cicero (+ 1938)

St. Alexander Tsitseronov (Feast Day - December 28)

Alexander Tsitseronov was born on August 15, 1893 in the village of Popadyino, of the Mikhailovsky district, in the Ryazan province, into the family of Deacon Alexander Andreyevich Tsitseronov and his wife Alexandra Petrovna. Three out of ten children of the Deacon became priests, and three daughters married future priests.

At twenty-one, Alexander Tsitseronov graduated from the Ryazan Theological Seminary. During his studies, he met a graduate of the Ryazan Women's Diocesan School, Evgenia Ivanovna Ivankova, the daughter of Archpriest John Pavlovich Ivankov, who blessed the young couple for marriage. Alexander was first a Reader in the church of the village of Pecherniki, of the Mikhailovsky district. Then he was ordained a Deacon and later a Priest, and in 1914 he was assigned to a parish in the village of Polivanovo. In 1915, the couple went to their destination. In addition to Polivanovo, the parish included the villages of Tarakanovka, Savinka, Studenets, Letniki, Bolshaya Khlebenka.

The Nuns of Shamordino, Prisoners of the Gulags of Solovki and Vorkutlag

The sisterhood of Shamordino Convent, around 30 in number, were imprisoned in 1923 at the closure of the convent by the Soviet authorities, first in Solovki prison camp, then the sisterhood was broken up and dispersed and, with the exception of one striking account by American prisoner John H. Noble that emerged following his release some 30 years after the nuns' disappearance, it is generally unknown, apart from scant references, what became of any other members of the sisterhood thereafter.

Holy Martyr Maxim Rumyantsev the Fool for Christ (+ 1928)

St. Maxim Rumyantsev (Feast Day - August 13)

By Hegumen Damaskin (Orlovsky)

Maxim Ivanovich Rumyantsev was born in the mid-fifties of the 19th century in the village of Vandyshki in the Kineshma District of the Kostroma province to a peasant family. His parents Ivan and Anna died when Maxim was barely ten years old, and he settled in the house of his brother Yegor and his wife Elizabeth, where he lived until he was fifteen, and at fifteen he left to wander. Where and how Maxim wandered is unknown, but after returning home almost thirty years later, he knew the church services by heart, although he remained illiterate; during his wanderings, he accepted the feat of foolishness, which he did not abandon until his death.

Returning to his native village, Maxim Ivanovich lived with his brother, then with the pious Gruzdev family, who revered the blessed one, then with the Kocherin family, or wherever God would lead.

Holy Confessor Matrona Belyakova of Anemnyasevo (+ 1936)

St. Matrona of Anemnyasevo (Feast Day - July 29)

Matrona was born on November 6, 1864 in the village of Anemnyasevo, of the Ryazan province, to her peasant farming parents Gregory and Eudokia, who were physically frail and underdeveloped. Her family was considered the poorest in the village, and her father was a bitter drunkard. After seven years, Matrona suddenly fell ill with smallpox. The parents did not treat the girl, and after an illness she went blind.

Holy Hiero-Confessor Alexander Orlov (+ 1941)

St. Alexander Orlov (Feast Day - April 14); photo taken in 1933

Alexander Vasilyevich Orlov was born in 1878 in the village of Makkoveevo (now the village Syntul) of the Kasimov district in the Ryazan province to the family of teacher Vasily Orlov. Soon after the birth of his son, Vasily Evdokimovich Orlov was ordained Deacon at the Holy Protection Church in the village of Makkoveevo. After graduating from a parish school and a theological school, Alexander from 1905 began to serve as a chanter in the Protection Church in his native village. After being married he was ordained a Deacon to this church in 1919.

Theophany During the Cholera Epidemic of 1909 in St. Petersburg

The Holy Hieromartyr Cyril (Smirnov) of Kazan was the Metropolitan of the Eparchy of Kazan in Russia from 1918 to 1922. Designated by Patriarch Tikhon as first locum tenens of the see of the Patriarchate, Metropolitan Cyril fought against Bolshevik control of the Church of Russia during the 1920s and 1930s. On July 7, 1937, Metropolitan Cyril was arrested in Yany-Kurgan and imprisoned in Chimkent on a charge of “participating in a counter-revolutionary underground organization of churchmen” together with Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd. The two hierarchs were condemned by a troika of the South Kazakhstan region on November 19, and were shot together on November 20, 1937 in Lisiy ovrag, near Chimkent. They were buried in Lisiy ovrag. His feast day is November 20th.

The "Good Friday" of Russian Monasticism (17-18 February 1932)

 

A special place in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century is occupied by the event, which was named the "Good Friday of Russian Monasticism." On one night from 17 to 18 February 1932, hundreds of monks and nuns were arrested, thrown into prison and subsequently sent into exile. These were primarily from monasteries in the northwestern region of Russia: Makarievskaya Hermitage, Alexander Nevsky Lavra, and the monasteries of Ioannovsky, Novodevichy Voskresensky, Vokhonovsky, Pyatogorsky, Kashinsky, Staroladozhsky. On this day, the following were arrested, and later numbered among the saints - Sts. Arefa Mitrenin, Lev Egorov, Maria Lelyanova and Patrick Petrov. At the moment, there is information there were about 273 monastics and 45 brothers and sisters. This is not a complete list. The arrests continued, and on April 17 and 18 of the same year, more than 200 people were arrested.

The Death-Bed Confession of a Persecutor of Christians

 

 

By Metropolitan Nektarios of Argolidos

Let me end with an incident told to me in Odessa a few years ago and published in the book In the Vortex of a Changing World - The New Martyrs of Berdyansk:

"Odessa 2002. The groans of an elderly patient are heard in the ward of a large state hospital in the Ukrainian city. Cancer is widespread. The pains are horrible. Painkillers are not enough. Day and night awake. The patient awaits death as a redemption. Many times he reaches the brink of death, but he seems to be indifferent. For months now he has been fighting between life and death. Ordinary people would say: 'His soul does not come out.'

Holy New Hieromartyr Dimitri (Benevolensky) of Tver (+ 1937)

 

St. Dimitri Benevolensky (Feast Day - November 14)

 

Dimitri Mikhailovich Benevolensky was born on October 10, 1883 in Vishny Volochyok, Tver province to a family of a clergyman. He studied first at Tver, and then at the St. Petersburg Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1909, after which he took the position of a teacher at the Nikolo-Stolpensky Monastery in the Tver province.

In 1911, a priest died in the village of Ostrovno and the parish was left without a pastor. Dimitri Mikhailovich was asked to be ordained a priest. In the same year, he married the daughter of Ivan Alekseevich Tikhomandritsky, Anna, who was sixteen years old. Her father was a railway engineer and was involved in the construction of the Volga railway. The family was pious, one of the sons, Michael, became a priest, and the other two daughters did not marry and devoted their lives to raising adopted children and children of relatives.

Father Timothy Strelkov: A Russian Priest Who Was Beheaded in 1918, Miraculously Survived for 12 Years, and Was Hacked to Pieces in 1930

 

A great miracle took place in the life of the priest Father Timothy Strelkov. He was condemned to death by the communists, beheaded, but by the miraculous intervention of God his head was restored. This miracle of modern times has been likened to that which took place in the life of Saint John of Damascus in the eighth century, whose hand was cut off but healed by the Lord and grown back on again.

 

These events happened in the following manner.

 

Father Timothy Porfirievich Strelkov lived in the village of Mikhailovka in the Urals, twelve kilometres from the regional center of Duvan. This priest of deep faith was the younger brother of another priest, Father Theodore Strelkov, who left with the armies of Admiral Kolchak to the East, to Harbin, where he died.

Holy New Martyr Nazarius, Metropolitan of Kutaisi-Gaenati in Georgia, With his Companions (+ 1924)

Metropolitan Nazarius of Kutaisi-Gaenati was born in 1872 in the village of Didi Jikhaishi in Imereti. His forefathers belonged to a long lineage of clergy, and the future metropolitan was nurtured in the Church from the earliest years of his youth.

Nazarius (known in the world as Joseph) received his education at Kutaisi Theological School. In 1892 he graduated with honors from Tbilisi Seminary and began to serve in the Church, first as a deacon and later (from February 9, 1893) as a priest. In 1904, after a series of personal tragedies (first his wife died, then his two daughters), Nazarius was tonsured a monk. On November 4, 1918, he was enthroned as Metropolitan of Kutaisi.

Holy New Martyr Andrew Argunov (+ 1938)

St. Andrew Argunov (Feast Day - July 23)

Andrew Ivanovich Argunov was born into the peasant family of Ivan Kuzmich and Pelagia Vasilievna Argunov on October 13, 1904. Due to the early death of his father, the family began to be in dire need, but, despite this, Andrew managed to be educated in a rural school. After that, he was a handicraftsman, and worked in an artel, which was engaged in the production of toothbrushes. In addition to work, Andrew Argunov sang in the church choir and was the chairman of the parish council of the Protection of the Mother of God Church in the village of Prudtsy. The events that ultimately led to his death took place in the 1930s.

Holy New Hieromartyr Michael Nakaryakov (+ 1918)

St. Michael Nakaryakov (Feast Day - July 22)

The early life of Father Michael Nakaryakov is unknown to us, but he was born in 1866. He served in the Transfiguration Cathedral of the village (now the city) Usolye as the third priest. His main service was the fulfillment of the following requirements: baptism of newborns, weddings of young couples, funeral services for the dead, prayers for the needs of the people of the village and nearby villages. He was loved by the parishioners more than the other priests for his mercy and non-acquisitive lifestyle. He made great efforts to educate poor children from working families in the Law of God. He was involved in fundraising for gifts to the poor for the holidays. On Easter, Father Michael went around to the houses of the poor and distributed money, sometimes saying: "This is for shoes", "This is for gifts to children." He himself was married with children.

Holy Venerable New Martyr Barbara Yakovleva (+ 1918)

St. Barbara the New Martyr (Feast Day - July 18)

Barbara Alexeyevna Yakovleva was born around 1880 in the Principality of Tver, and was fluent in Russian, English and German. She became a nun at the Saints Martha and Mary Convent in Moscow, which was founded in 1908 by Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. She arrived to the Convent from Yalta on August 20, 1910. As of 1911, she was 31 years old.

She was small in stature and deeply pious, and served as Grand Duchess Elizabeth's maid before being tonsured. Her nickname was Varya. The Grand Duchess and other women also took vows on that date. As sisters of Grand Duchess Elizabeth's convent, the women were well known throughout Moscow for performing acts of charity. They took food to the homes of the poor, set up a home for women suffering from tuberculosis, established a hospital to care for the sick, established homes for the physically disabled, pregnant women and the elderly. They also established an orphanage. Their charitable efforts later spread to other cities in Russia.

Holy New Hieromartyr Peter, Archbishop of Voronezh (+ 1929)

Archbishop Peter was born on February 18, 1878, the eldest son of a Moscow protopriest, Fr. Constantine Zverev (who later became the spiritual father of Grand-Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna), and his wife Anna. He was given the name of Basil in Holy Baptism after St. Basil the Confessor (February 28). Already as a child he loved playing church services, and zealously attended church services with his father.

In his early childhood he had a vision of the Saviour. As he described it: "In childhood I was very fat and pudgy. The adults liked to squeeze me, and I couldn't bear this and pushed them away with my hands and legs. And then I saw a vision. We had a table standing by the wall in the living-room, and there I saw the Saviour sitting, dressed in blue and red clothing and holding me in His hands. And under the table was a terrible dog. The Saviour took my hand and stretched it under the table to the dog, saying:

Holy New Martyr Tatiana Grimblit (+ 1937)

St. Tatiana Grimblit (Feast Day - September 10)

That we live in an increasingly secularized society, as contemporary Christians so often lament, is undeniable. Yet how many of us can honestly claim that we have suffered anything beyond the slightest inconvenience or embarrassment for our beliefs? While it is true that displays of explicit religiosity in public settings have become increasingly frowned upon, personal faith continues to be valued. Works of charity and philanthropy, whether performed by individual believers or religious organizations, are universally praised. As much as the tide may be changing, few of us need to worry about being carried away by it so long as we stand firm. In this, we are very fortunate.

Not so very long ago – indeed, within living memory – the situation was very different in the Soviet Union. A young woman named Tatiana Nikolaevna Grimblit, unexceptional in any way apart from her virtue, was repeatedly arrested and exiled, and finally executed, for doing no more than helping and supporting others who had likewise been arrested and exiled. Such was the nature of the militantly atheist regime of the twenties and thirties of the last century that these simple acts of Christian charity, performed by an ordinary young woman with no political allegiance, were regarded as anti-revolutionary agitation deserving of capital punishment. One cannot help but recall the prophecy of St. Anthony the Great recorded in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’”

Holy New Hiero-Confessor Basil (Preobrazhensky), Bishop of Kineshma (+ 1945)

St. Basil of Kineshma (Feast Day - July 31)

The Saint's greatness was rooted in his upbringing, which was strict even by the standards of nineteenth century Russia. His father, a priest, kept all secular influences out of the home, nor were the children allowed to wander outside the surrounding hedgerow which marked the boundaries of their world. But the apparent harshness of this monastic like environment was dissolved in an atmosphere of true Christian love, and the social isolation was frequently broken by the glad reception of poor folk and pilgrims. The lack of distractions and the training in prayer and spiritual struggle disposed the mind to concentrate, so that the children's delayed education proved no intellectual disadvantage and served to benefit their spiritual welfare, which was their parents' main concern.