Arefa Mitrenin

Holy Confessor Arefa Mitrenin, a hieromonk (in the world Alexander Fyodorovich Mitrenin), was born on 21 November 1879 at Kronstadt and died in exile, in November 1932, at the age of fifty-⁠three. He was glorified by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church in August 2000. He is commemorated on 6 November, on 7 February, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Saint Petersburg, on 11 July, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Valaam, on 22 August, in the Synaxis of the Moscow Saints, on 5 September, and in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Central Asian Metropolitan District, on 8 September.

He entered the Valaam Monastery on 26 May 1902. He was enrolled as a novice on 20 March 1906, tonsured monk with the name Arefa on 22 May 1910, ordained hierodeacon on 30 July 1915 and hieromonk on 28 April 1921. From February 1917 he performed the choir obedience at the Moscow metochion and took his turn in the services. In 1925 he went to Finland, to the Valaam Monastery, from which he was expelled on 22 October for fidelity to the Russian Church and to the Julian calendar. From 1927 he lived in the chapel of the Valaam Monastery in Leningrad, on Vasilievsky Island. He was arrested on 18 February 1932. On that day 318 monks and nuns from various monasteries were arrested in Leningrad, among them nine brethren of the Valaam metochion, and among them Hieromonk Arefa.

At the interrogation he said: "Against the Soviet authorities I have never come out actively, but I cannot be a Soviet man, because we monks have been deprived of everything: monasteries and churches are closed, priests are exiled; in general the Soviet authorities everywhere persecute religion." From the indictment of the case it appears that in 1931 to 1932 the OGPU learned that in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, the former Novodevichy Monastery, and in the former Kyiv metochion counter-⁠revolutionary elements were gathering, carrying on systematic counter-⁠agitation and preparing and spreading church and monarchist writings, hymns, verses and akathists; that pilgrimages were organised to the graves of "blessed Matthew" and "the silent Pathermuthius", turned into anti-⁠Soviet demonstrations; that illegal monastic hostels had been created and that close ties were kept with those in the camps and with an exiled confessor, by letters, money and food. On the basis of articles 58-10 and 58-11 of the Criminal Code, Hieromonk Arefa was exiled to Kazakhstan for three years, from 17 February 1932. He died in exile in November 1932 and was buried at Tashkent.