Basil Malakhov

Holy Confessor Basil Malakhov was an archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church, born in 1873 in a village of the Gorodok district, Vitebsk governorate, and died in 1937 at Kargopol, of typhus. He was glorified among the saints in 2005, as a confessor, by the Council of Bishops, for veneration throughout the Church. He is commemorated on 11 (24) March.

He was born into a peasant family. He graduated from the theological school of Vitebsk (1888), the Vitebsk seminary (1894) and the Moscow Theological Academy with the degree of candidate of theology (1898). From 1898 he was a teacher at the second-⁠class church school at Khrapovichi. From 1899 he was teacher of the history and refutation of the Russian schism and of comparative theology, head of the library, supervisor of pupils, treasurer (1900) and secretary (1902) of the board of care for poor pupils, inspector (1903) at the Volhynia seminary. He received the orders of Saint Stanislaus third class (1905) and second class (1911) and Saint Anne third class (1908). He was married to Maria Kalinnikovna Savitskaya.

In 1917 he was a member of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, elected as a layman from the Volhynia diocese, took part in the first session and sat on the thirteenth section. From 1919 to 1922 he taught at the pastoral school of Zhitomir. In 1922 he was an expert in the case of Hieromartyr Arkady (Ostalsky) and a witness in the case of Bishop Averky (Kedrov). From 1924 he was priest at the cemetery church of Saint James in Zhitomir, archpriest. From 1926 he was rector of the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the village of Tiosto, Gorodok district, Vitebsk governorate. In 1927 he was arrested and in 1928, for anti-⁠Soviet agitation, sent to three years of exile in the town of Nizhneudinsk in the Siberian Region. From 1931 he served in the church of the Nativity of Saint John the Forerunner in the village of Abramovo, Arzamas district, Nizhny Novgorod Region. Then he lived and served in secret in the village of Usvyaty, near his native village.

In 1936 he was arrested together with his wife. At the investigation he declared that he was ready at any time to suffer for the Orthodox faith, but, as a pastor, would tell the people the truth that the Soviet power had set itself the task of destroying Orthodoxy in Russia. For this he was sent to five years of exile in the town of Kargopol in the Northern Region, where he died of typhus. He also left writings: The Transformation of the Holy Gifts in the Sacrament of the Eucharist (1898), The Missionary Companion (1903), The Russian Orthodox Mission in its Past and Present (1907) and Sectarian Attacks (1914).