Euthymius Kochev

Holy Martyr Euthymius Kochev was born in 1867 in the village of Vilgort in the Ust-⁠Sysolsk district of the Vologda province, today Vylgort in the Komi Republic, in a Komi peasant family, and received martyrdom by shooting on 18 September 1937. He was numbered among the saints in the year 2001 and is honoured among the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church.

Euthymius Petrovich Kochev finished a three-⁠year village school, spoke Russian well and wrote correctly. He made birch-⁠bark baskets and worked as a carpenter and as a post-⁠driver. Despite the persecution of believers, he took an active part in the church life of the village of Vilgort and made large donations to the church of the Meeting of the Lord. In 1936 he was elected church warden, and in June 1937, when the authorities decided to close the church, he went from house to house collecting signatures in its defence.

On 13 September NKVD agents arrived in Vilgort, but Euthymius refused to hand over the church keys to them and tried to gather the people to prevent the inventory of the church property. He was detained at once (the arrest was recorded on 14 September) and put in prison at Syktyvkar. At the interrogation he confirmed that, as church warden, he had defended the church, and rejected the charge of active counter-⁠revolutionary activity.

On 16 September the Special Troika of the NKVD of the Komi A.S.S.R. sentenced him to the highest penalty, and on 18 September he was shot. He was buried in an unknown grave.

He is commemorated on 18 September and on 7 February in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church (new style).