Euthymius Goryachev

Holy Hieromartyr Euthymius Goryachev, a priest, was born on 19 January 1884 in the village of Nikolskoe-⁠Barnuki in the Gorodishche district of the Penza province, in a poor peasant family, and received martyrdom by shooting on 15 September 1937, in Kazakhstan. He was numbered among the saints in the year 2000 and is honoured among the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church.

Euthymius Nikitich Goryachev was left an orphan of his father at four, and soon afterwards his mother died too. He was the only boy in the family and remained in the care of his sisters. In the same village lived his uncle Alexei Goryachev with his wife Alexandra, Euthymius' godmother, who had four sons of their own but gladly took him into the house. Alexandra stood out even among her Orthodox fellow villagers for deep piety and prudence.

The village priest, who had no children, asked Alexandra to give him the child when Euthymius reached seven, and she agreed, thinking that an upbringing in the priest's house would be more useful to him. The priest sent him to the village school, then to the two-⁠class school, which that year was transformed into a seminary. In the priest's house Euthymius was no different from peasant children: he dressed like them and wore bast shoes as they did.

He studied very diligently at the seminary and earned his own money by giving lessons in better-⁠off families. After the seminary he was a teacher at the school of the village of Arkhangelskoe, where he worked seven years. Then he was transferred to the school at Voskresensko-⁠Lopukhovskaya, twenty-⁠five versts from Penza, where conditions were good, with five rooms and income for singing lessons and directing the church choir. His uncle and aunt urged him to marry Alexandra, daughter of Constantine Kiryanov, whom he had known from childhood.

Having become a priest, he served in villages of the Krasnoyarsk region. In the years of persecution he steadfastly opposed the Renovationists, for which he was arrested several times and spent three years in a camp. After the closing of the church he secretly celebrated services at home. In 1936 he was arrested again, for anti-⁠Soviet agitation, and sent to the camps at Karaganda. He was shot on 15 September 1937.

He is commemorated on 15 September, on 11 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Krasnoyarsk Metropolis, and on 7 February in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church (new style).