Basil Sokolov

Saint Basil Sokolov, hieromartyr, was a priest of the Russian Church and was shot at Moscow on 26 May 1922. He was numbered among the saints as a hieromartyr in the year 2000, by the Jubilee Council of Bishops, for veneration throughout the Church. He is commemorated on 13 (26) May and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

He was born in 1868 in the village of Staraya Sloboda, Aleksandrov district, Vladimir governorate, in the family of the deacon Alexander Sokolov. He finished the Spaso-⁠Bethany theological seminary. From 1 October 1888 to 4 December 1890 he was teacher at the parish school of Zakubezhye, Aleksandrov district. On 16 December 1890 he was ordained priest to the church of the Nativity of Christ in the village of Pustoe, Pereyaslavl district, Vladimir governorate. From 1891 to 1906 he was manager and teacher of religion at the parish school. From 1906 to 1910 he studied at the Moscow Theological Academy. From 26 December 1910 he served at the church of Saint Nicholas the Appeared on the Arbat.

In April 1922 he was arrested in the case of the confiscation of church valuables, together with the priests Christopher Nadezhdin and Alexander Zaozersky, the hieromonk Macarius (Telegin) and the layman Sergei Tikhomirov. At the interrogation he did not admit guilt of agitation against the confiscation of church valuables. He was shot on 26 May 1922 and buried in the Kalitnikovskoe cemetery in Moscow. He was numbered among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia by decision of the Jubilee Council of Bishops, held on 13 to 16 August 2000 in Moscow.