Barbara Konkina

Holy Venerable Martyr Barbara Konkina, a novice, by her full name Barbara Ivanovna Konkina, was born in 1868 in the village of Sushki, Kiritsa district, Spassk county, Ryazan province, in a peasant family. In 1887, at nineteen, she entered as a novice the Spaso-⁠Vlakherna convent in the Dmitrov district of Moscow province. There she was tonsured and struggled until the closing of the convent in 1923. From then on, according to the official papers, she was "without fixed occupation", but she continued her labour of inner prayer and lived in the village of Sledovo, Noginsk district, Moscow region.

On 26 September 1937 the nun Barbara Konkina was arrested, accused of "taking part in a counter-⁠revolutionary church group". On 15 October 1937 the troika of the NKVD administration of Moscow region sentenced her to ten years in a camp. She never admitted guilt, behaved with unusual firmness, named no one and agreed to no accusation. Because of beatings and torture she was brought to such a state that she was officially declared unfit for work. In 1938 her case was reviewed and on 21 February 1938 the troika sentenced her to death. On 5 April 1938 Mother Barbara was shot at the Butovo firing range. By decision of the Holy Synod of 26 December 2006 the nun Barbara (Konkina) was numbered among the saints.

She is commemorated on 5 April, on 29 May (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, on 23 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of Ryazan, and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, all in the new style.