Avenir Sinitsyn

Holy Venerable Martyr Avenir Sinitsyn, a monk of the Optina Hermitage, was born in 1879 in Bolkhov, in the Oryol province, in the family of the townsman Matvey Sinitsyn, and received at baptism the name Andrei. He received the crown of martyrdom by shooting on 5 December 1937 at Sukhinichi in the Kaluga region, together with four others. He is commemorated on 7 February, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, on 31 July, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kaluga, on 24 October, in the Synaxis of the Saints who shone forth at the Optina Hermitage, and on 5 December, the day of his witness.

The way to Optina

Andrei married but was widowed, and in 1908 he entered the Optina Hermitage. On 11 October 1911 he was received among the brotherhood, and then tonsured a monk with the name Avenir. In the monastery his obedience was bell-⁠ringer. After the godless closed the monastery in 1923, he lived in Kozelsk, the nearest town, together with other Optina monks. From his own statements it appears that, with the monk Macarius, he formed a small group of monks living together: Macarius, he and Father Eutychius. In 1936 Macarius went home, to the Mogilev province, to his nephews, and Savva came in his place, and the three went on living together. They had no steady work, but went from house to house doing occasional jobs, and on service days they gathered at the church of the Annunciation.

Arrest and sentence

In 1937 the last period of the destruction of the Russian Church by the atheist authorities began, which also struck the monks of Optina still at liberty in Kozelsk. Avenir was arrested on 30 October 1937, with the other monks, and imprisoned at Sukhinichi. On the same day he was questioned. The landlady of the house where the monks lived testified that Avenir maintained that life in the monastery had formerly been better than now under Soviet power. A neighbour also stated that the monks did nothing useful and had refused to go to the meeting before the elections. The investigation said that he secretly visited a nun, Anna Samoylova, at whose house counter-⁠revolutionary gatherings were held. Avenir admitted that he had visited the novice of the Shamordino Monastery, Anna Samoylova, several times and had worked for her, that she had bought a house and kept a cow and pigs, and that the nun Martha lived with her and helped her in the household. He denied any counter-⁠revolutionary activity.

On 21 November 1937 the NKVD troika condemned to death by shooting the monks Eutychius Didenko, Avenir Sinitsyn, Savva Suslov and Mark Makhrov, as well as the layman Boris Kozlov. The Lord ordained that on the feast of the Entry of the Mother of God into the Temple, 4 December, they should stand in prayer, though in prison, yet still on earth. They were shot the next day, 5 December 1937, and buried in an unknown common grave.

His companions in martyrdom

Eutychius, born in 1870 in the Tomsk province in the family of the peasant Ivan Didenko and baptised Emelyan, was widowed and in 1901 entered the Skete of Saint John the Forerunner at Optina; he was tonsured in 1911. Savva, born in 1873 at Kameneva in the Oryol province, baptised Sergei, entered Optina in 1900 and was tonsured in 1910; after the monastery was closed he supported himself by sewing. Mark, born in 1875 in the Kaluga province, baptised Mikhail, entered Optina in 1899, was a gardener and was tonsured on 24 June 1911, the same day as Eutychius. Boris Kozlov, born in 1886, a peasant of the Kaluga province, had worked at the Putilov factory, then was warden of the church of the Protection in the village of Pokrovskoe, sentenced to a year of forced labour, and at Kozelsk worked as a stableman at the hospital and sang in the choir of the church of the Annunciation. On 28 October 1937 he was arrested with the monks.