Athanasius Yegorov

Holy Venerable Martyr Athanasius (Alexei Egorovich Yegorov) was an archimandrite of the Russian Church. He was born on 7 March 1884 in the village of Surushino, Tver province, and was shot on 19 August 1937 in Moscow. He was numbered among the saints in 2001, for veneration throughout the Church. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 2000.

He was born into a peasant family, that of Egor Illarionovich and Agafia Efremovna Yegorov. He finished the parish church school. On 18 January 1908 he entered the Valaam Monastery, on 19 October 1911 he was received among the novices, and on 21 February 1914 he was tonsured to the mantle with the name Athanasius. On 24 April 1921 he was ordained hierodeacon, after some time hieromonk, then Metropolitan Sergius raised him to the rank of hegumen. He served at the church in the village of Izmailovo, Reutov district, Moscow region.

He was arrested on 26 June 1937 on a charge of terrorist agitation and of giving material help to clergy imprisoned for anti-⁠Soviet activity, and held in the Butyrka prison. At the interrogation he said that Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) had treated him well, but had regarded him to some extent as his servant. Being in the metropolitan's household, he had looked after domestic matters, sometimes helped him at services in church and carried out other tasks for him. He admitted that he had given material help to condemned clergy, both at Metropolitan Sergius's bidding and on his own initiative.

He was entered on Stalin's execution list (Moscow-⁠Center) of 10 August 1937, in the first category. By the sentence of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of 19 August 1937 he was condemned to death in a single case with A. A. Khotovitsky, A. V. Lebedev, A. A. Shirokov and P. S. Krylov. He was shot the same day, 19 August 1937, and buried in an unknown grave at the Donskoy cemetery; on that day the condemned were not cremated. He was posthumously rehabilitated by the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation on 15 August 2000.

He was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia by the decision of the Holy Synod of 22 February 2001. He is also commemorated in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.