Barsanuphius Lebedev

Saint Barsanuphius (in the world Vasily Pavlovich Lebedev, 1871-1918), hieromartyr, was Bishop of Kirillov, vicar of the Novgorod diocese, a missionary among the Old Believers and a guardian of the treasures of the Kirillo-⁠Belozersky Monastery. He was killed without trial by the Bolsheviks in September 1918, on Mount Zolotukha near Kirillov, together with others. He is commemorated on 2 September by the old calendar, which is 15 September by the new. He was glorified locally in 1999 and in August 2000 for veneration throughout the Church.

Family and formation

He was born in 1871 in the village of Staruhino, Novgorod province. His father, Pavel Mikhailovich Lebedev, was psalm-⁠reader at the church of Saint Nicholas, and his mother, Agrippina Ivanovna, was widowed when Vasily was eight, with eight children to care for. His brother Alexei, in monastic life Arsenius, was shot on 17 December 1937. He finished the church school at Borovichi and the Novgorod seminary (1894), where he was influenced by the teacher Nikolai Sperovsky, historian of the schism and future archbishop.

Missionary among the Old Believers

From 1894 he was assistant to the diocesan missionary. Still a pupil in the final class, he knew the old printed books and went to debates with the Old Believers. On 1 April 1895 he was tonsured with the name Barsanuphius. His meeting with the famous missionary Paul of Prussia, a year before the latter's death, weighed much in the choice of this path. On 9 April 1895 he was ordained hierodeacon and on 30 July hieromonk, at Saint Anthony's Monastery in Novgorod. From 1896 he was the diocese's missionary-⁠preacher, persuaded many Old Believers to pass to Edinoverie (accepting the authority of the Synod while keeping the old rites), built several churches of this kind and served in them from the old books. He published missionary articles and books, gave short courses for priests and was one of the organizers of a new monastery in the Borovichi district, today Pyatnitskaya Hermitage. He took part in missionary congresses at Kazan (1897) and Kiev (1908) and, in 1909, at Moscow, at a congress of the Old Believers. In 1909 he was raised to archimandrite. In 1911 he investigated the activity of the Ioannites of Pskov, whom the Synod in 1912 judged a sect of the Khlyst type.

Bishop and martyrdom

On 8 January 1917 he was consecrated Bishop of Kirillov in the Saint Sophia Cathedral of Novgorod, in the presence of the future martyrs Benjamin of Gdov and Juvenal of Kashira. He was a gifted preacher and founded at Kirillov the Brotherhood of Orthodox Women and Men, to guard holy things, especially those of the Kirillo-⁠Belozersky Monastery. With his blessing the restoration of the icon of the Dormition Cathedral and of the oldest image of Cyril of Beloozero began. He gave half of the bishop's house for a museum in the monastery.

On 14 September 1918, returning from inspecting the old valuables of the Goritsky Monastery with the art historian Alexander Anisimov, he was arrested and imprisoned at Kirillov. The next day he was executed without trial by a punitive detachment, on Mount Zolotukha. With him were killed Abbess Seraphima (Elisaveta Sulimova) of the Ferapontov Monastery, Mikhail Trubnikov, Nikolai Burlakov, Anatoly Barashkov and Philip Maryshev. The bodies were buried there in a common grave. In the 1960s the grave was destroyed and a pigsty built on the site. In 1998 a cross was set up, and in 2005 a chapel.