Callistus Oparin

Holy Venerable Martyr Callistus Oparin was a monk of the monastery of Saint Nicholas in Verkhoturye and was shot in October 1918, together with the monk Hyacinth (Pitatelev), because he refused to renounce Christ. He is numbered among the new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church.

Monastic life

Born Kozma Mokeyevich Oparin, he was born in 1864 (by other data, in 1863) in the Nolinsk district of Vyatka province, in a peasant family. In the spring of 1899, at almost thirty-⁠five, he entered the monastery of Saint Nicholas in Verkhoturye as a novice, where he was first a stove-⁠maker and plasterer. On 13 February 1904 (old style) he was tonsured a monk with the name Callistus, in honour of the Holy Martyr Callistus of Amorium. After six months he was transferred to the Dormition monastery in Dalmatovo, where he bore the obedience of kellarch, that is a guardian of monastic order, piety and cleanliness in the cells of the brethren, and stove-⁠maker. In 1906-1907, with the blessing of the acting abbot, hieromonk Maximilian, he made a nine-⁠month pilgrimage to the holy places. In the summer of 1912 he moved to the Exaltation of the Cross monastery at Kyrtom, and in 1913 he returned to the monastery in Verkhoturye, where he struggled until his martyric death.

The upheavals of the revolution he met in the monastery of Saint Nicholas. The Bolsheviks, seizing the monastery, moved the monks out of the brethren's buildings and proposed that they move to the Bolshoi Aktai skete. Those who stayed passed to the disposition of Soviet power. The novices and monks were considered mobilized and came under the command of the 4th Yekaterinburg regiment, for which they had to work. They received food from the regiment, had soldiers' clothing, which they refused to wear, for they had been blessed to work in cassocks. The monks received this as a monastic obedience and worked conscientiously. The Red Army command had to admit that the novices and monks worked better than the Red soldiers. They were made to dig trenches near the front line and to do earthworks. Callistus showed humility and obedience to the monastery's leadership and strove to endure the Bolshevik invasion without murmuring, seeing in everything the will of God.

Martyrdom

In October 1918 the monastery's leadership blessed the monks Callistus and Hyacinth to guard the Maly Aktai skete from plunder by the Red soldiers who, retreating from Verkhoturye, had stopped nearby. The fear of plunder was not in vain: the Red soldiers burst into the skete searching for treasure, for they had learned that money and valuables of the Verkhoturye monastery were buried on the territory of the skete. The monks Callistus and Hyacinth were arrested, accused of spying. The godless proposed to them that they renounce Christ and so keep their lives. The monks refused to buy their freedom by renouncing the Saviour, believing in the unchanging words of our Lord Jesus Christ: "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save it" (Mark 8:35).

They were shot with revolvers near the station of Korelino, on the fourth day after the taking of the skete, that is on 16 or 17 October (old style, 30 October new style) 1918. According to witnesses, Father Callistus was also stabbed with a bayonet, as a deep wound in his neck showed. The soldiers covered them with earth. After the retreat of the Red army the bodies were found and taken to the monastery of Saint Nicholas. On 12 (25) November Archimandrite Xenophon (Medvedev) led the solemn funeral service for the martyrs, who were buried in the brotherhood cemetery, beside the church of Saint Neophytus (the cemetery church of the monastery was destroyed in the 1930s). They were the first to die for the faith in the town of Verkhoturye. The Venerable Martyr Callistus was glorified in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in 2002 by the Diocese of Yekaterinburg. His relics have not yet been found. He is commemorated on 7 February (a movable day), in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, on 11 February, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Yekaterinburg, and on 30 October, in new style.