Arefa Eremkin

Holy Martyr Arefa Eremkin (Arefa or Arefy Petrovich Eremkin, 1884 to 1937) was a peasant of the village of Krasivka, in the Narovchat district of the Penza province (now the Torbeevo district of Mordovia). He was shot on 10 August 1937. He was glorified by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church in the year 2000. He is commemorated on 10 August, on 7 February and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church.

He received no schooling and all his life worked the land. It is known that he had a wife, Fekla, and five sons. In 1937 he was arrested on suspicion of counter-⁠revolutionary activity and accused that "under the guise of religious conversations he systematically held illegal gatherings at which he spread provocative rumours of the fall of Soviet power and urged individual farmers not to join the collective farm". He did not admit guilt. On 10 August 1937 Arefa Petrovich Eremkin was shot, on the sentence of the NKVD troika of Mordovia, passed on 5 August.