Barlaam Efimov

Holy Venerable Martyr Barlaam Efimov, a monk, whose name in the world was Vasily Sevastianovich Efimov, was born on 12 April 1903 in Moscow, in the pious family of Sevastian and Mavra Efimov. He worked as a courier at the 33rd militia station. In 1935 he was secretly tonsured a monk with the name Barlaam.

He was arrested on 29 September 1937, together with Archbishop Dimitry (Dobroserdov) and the others of their group. He was accused of being hostile to Soviet power and of conducting systematic anti-⁠Soviet agitation, of placing his apartment at the disposal of secret services and of lodging clergy returned from exile, and of having been tonsured in secret in 1935 and inducing others to do so. The investigator asked how priestly vestments had come to be in his apartment, and Vasily Sevastianovich answered that they had been left by the hieroschemamonk Aristoklios, whom the whole family deeply revered and who had served prayer services several times in their home; the hieroschemamonk had died about five years earlier. He did not admit guilt. On 17 October 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years in prison. He was sent to Lokchimlag in Komi, where he died soon after, on an unknown date.

He is commemorated on 21 October, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, all in the new style.