Daniel Sysoev

Daniel Sysoev was a missionary priest of Moscow, born on 12 January 1974 and killed on 20 November 2009 in the church where he served. Many believers honour him as a martyr and wait for his canonization, but the Church has not canonized him by synodal decision.

He was born in Moscow into a family of artists; his father, Alexei, was a priest. By his own account he was half Russian and half Tatar. He entered the Moscow Theological Seminary in 1991, graduated in 1995 and continued at the Moscow Theological Academy, where he received the degree of candidate of theology in 2000. He had been made a reader in 1994 and a deacon in 1995, and in January 2001 Patriarch Alexy II ordained him priest.

In 2003 he founded a new parish near the Kantemirovskaya metro station, with the patriarch's blessing, and in 2006 a wooden church dedicated to the Holy Apostle Thomas was raised there. Father Daniel preached at every service and gave Bible commentaries every Thursday. Around the church there grew missionary courses, a singing school and an icon-⁠painting school. He taught liturgics and missiology at the Perervino Seminary (2004 to 2009), led missionary groups to the Kryashen villages of Tatarstan (2007) and to Kyrgyzstan (2008), and took part in public debates with Muslims and with Old Believers. For what he said about Islam he was criticized by Muslims and received death threats. He was married to Julia and had three daughters: Justina, Dorothea and Angelina.

On 19 November 2009 he was mortally wounded by gunshots in the church of the Holy Apostle Thomas and died on the operating table the next day. The funeral was served on 23 November in the church at Yasenevo by Archbishop Arseny, and Patriarch Kirill offered a litia at his coffin. He was buried in the grounds of the church of the Saviour Not-⁠Made-⁠by-⁠Hands at Setun, in the diocesan cemetery. The investigation blamed a Kyrgyz man, Beksultan Karybekov, killed on 1 December 2009 at Makhachkala, but representatives of the Patriarchate said they doubted that the case had been fully explained.

Hieromonk Job (Gumerov) wrote that his death was a Christian sacrifice, and others have called him a martyr. Canonization has not taken place.