Galaktion Urbanovich-⁠Novikov

Holy Venerable Martyr Galaktion Urbanovich-⁠Novikov, a hieromonk, was born on 11 March 1870 in the village of Pudino in the Lida district of the Vilna province, in a peasant family, in the world Gregory Stanislavovich Urbanovich-⁠Novikov. He died shot on 19 December 1937, at Alma-⁠Ata.

On 20 June 1900 he entered the Transfiguration Monastery of Valaam, on 19 October 1904 he was received as a novice, on 1 March 1908 he was tonsured a monk, on 24 March 1911 he was ordained deacon by Archbishop Sergius of Finland and Vyborg, later patriarch of Moscow, in the church of the All Saints skete, and on 24 December 1915 he was ordained hieromonk. He was overseer of workers in the monastery, and after October 1917 steward at the Valaam metochion in Moscow. From 1925 he served at the church of the Rzhev-⁠Okovets icon of the Mother of God in Moscow.

On 29 June 1927 he was arrested on a charge of espionage. By decision of the OGPU Collegium of 25 July 1927 he was imprisoned for five years in the special camp at Solovki. Returning in 1932, he settled in the settlement of Verkhny Posad in the Zvenigorod district of the Moscow region and served in one of the churches of the district. On 4 November 1936 he was arrested on the charge of anti-⁠Soviet propaganda and of interpreting Holy Scripture in a counterrevolutionary spirit, and was imprisoned in Butyrka in Moscow. He did not admit guilt. On 20 January 1937 he was sentenced by the Special Council of the NKVD to five years of exile in Kazakhstan, which he served in the village of Taldy-⁠Kurgan, in the Alma-⁠Ata district. In November 1937 he was arrested again, on the charge of anti-⁠Soviet propaganda. Witnesses described him as a supporter of Patriarch Tikhon and an opponent of Renovationism. Again he did not admit guilt. On 4 December 1937 the special troika of the NKVD Directorate of the Alma-⁠Ata region sentenced him to death by shooting, and the sentence was carried out on 19 December 1937. He was buried in an unknown common grave.

He was glorified by decision of the Holy Synod of 27 December 2000. He is commemorated, according to the Azbyka page, on 23 August and 20 December.