Averky Severovostokov

Saint Averky Severovostokov, hieromartyr, was a priest of the Russian Church, a graduate of the Ufa seminary, killed by Red Army soldiers on 30 June 1918, in the village of Yemashi, while he was serving a moleben. He was canonized locally in the diocese of Ufa in 1999, and in 2000 by the Council of Bishops, for veneration throughout the Church. He is commemorated on 17 June by the old calendar, in the Synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia.

He was born around 1845 or 1847; the exact date is not known. He graduated from the Ufa seminary. In the middle of the 1880s he was ordained priest. For thirty-⁠eight years, until his martyric death, he served at the church of Saint John Chrysostom in the village of Yemashi and was also teacher of the Law of God at the zemstvo school. From the middle of the 1910s he was a full member of the diocesan committee of the Orthodox missionary society.

His wife was Evdokia Vasilievna, née Kadomtseva (born 1850). They had six children: four sons, Pavel, Porfiry, Peter and Sergei, and two daughters. Father Averky strove to give his children a good education. All the sons graduated from the Ufa seminary and served the Church.

He was killed by Red Army soldiers on 30 June 1918, while he was serving a moleben on the square in front of the church at Yemashi. He was buried at Yemashi, beside the church. He received the thigh-⁠shield in 1889, the skufia in 1890, the kamilavka in 1894 and the Order of Saint Anne, third class, in 1915.

On 26 October 1999 he was glorified among the locally venerated saints of the diocese of Ufa, and at the Council of Bishops of 2000 he was numbered among the saints venerated throughout Russia.