Cosmas Korotkikh

Holy Hieromartyr Cosmas Korotkikh, a priest, was born on 25 October 1886, on the commemoration of the Venerable Cosmas, bishop of Maiuma, in the village of Bolshaya Usa, Osa district, Perm province, in the family of the peasant Rodion Korotkikh. From childhood he chose the way of serving God, left his parents' home and went to study in Moscow, where he graduated from the pastoral school. Soon he married Praskovya Ivanovna, and they had a daughter and a son.

From the age of eighteen he carried out the duties of psalm-⁠reader, and in 1912 he was ordained deacon. It is not known exactly where he began to serve, but his personal papers show that in 1917 he was a deacon of the Annunciation cathedral in Votkinsk, Sarapul district, Vyatka province. Besides serving in church, from 1916 to 1919 he taught religion at the mixed primary school no. 6 in Votkinsk. In 1921 he was ordained priest for the same cathedral. The persecutions of the twenties and thirties fell on him in full. In 1927 he was twice held in the Sarapul prison and had to change his place of service many times. On 30 March 1927 Bishop Onisim (Pylaev) of Votkinsk blessed him to continue his service as rector of a cemetery church. Later he was priest of the Epiphany church in the village of Nechkino in the Sarapul diocese, and on 27 September 1928 the Edinoverie bishop Paul of Kerzhenets blessed him to serve at the Edinoverie church in Izhevsk.

No documents survive about the family's wanderings after that, but by the middle of 1937 Father Cosmas and his wife had settled in the village of Lukino, Podolsk district, in the Moscow region, where before the revolution the Exaltation of the Cross women's monastery had stood. The family lived in poverty, with no property. Having gained no earthly wealth, Father Cosmas preached true wealth. He said: "He who believes in God to the end remains a faithful son of Christ". He guided spiritually not only the people of Lukino and the villages around, but, as witnesses later showed at the interrogations, nuns from Moscow came to him on religious feasts and sang in the church choir.

His zealous service could not escape the notice of the NKVD. He was arrested on 27 November 1937 and from that day held in the Serpukhov prison on a charge of systematic counter-⁠revolutionary agitation. The record of his only interrogation, on 28 November, consists of three short questions and answers. Father Cosmas did not admit guilt of anti-⁠Soviet agitation. By decision of the NKVD troika for the Moscow region of 1 December 1937 he was sentenced to death. The execution took place on 8 December 1937 at the Butovo firing range near Moscow, where he was buried in an unknown mass grave.

He is commemorated on 8 December, the day of his death, on 29 May, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs who suffered at Butovo (the date moves), on 11 July, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Udmurtia (the date moves), and on 5 September, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, in the new style.