George Timofeev

Holy Venerable Martyr George Timofeev, a novice, was born in 1880 and received the crown of martyrdom on 28 August 1918, old style, which is 10 September in the new style, shot together with the brethren of the Zilantov Dormition Monastery in Kazan. He is commemorated with them.

In 1917 in the Zilantov Monastery, on the outskirts of the city of Kazan, nine monks and novices lived under the care of Archimandrite Sergius Zaitsev. When in 1918 Kazan was liberated by the White-⁠Czechoslovak troops under the command of Colonel Kappel, two guns were placed on the hill before the monastery, which struck the positions of the Bolsheviks. On 28 August the Czechs retreated, and the Bolsheviks burst into the settlement where the monastery stood. Soldiers of the Red Army lined up the whole brotherhood by the wall of the monastery courtyard and shot it in rifle volleys. Then they left the monastery and set out for the city.

Only the old hieromonk Joseph remained alive, who fell to the ground at the first volleys and was thought dead. Coming out from under the bodies of his brethren, he went into the city and found shelter in the monastery of Saint John the Forerunner. Father Joseph, deafened and dead a year after the shooting, told of the martyr's end of his brethren. Shot were Archimandrite Sergius Zaitsev (1863-1918), the hieromonk Laurence Nikitin (1872-1918), the hieromonk Seraphim Kuzmin (1870-1918), the hierodeacon Theodosius Alexandrov (1864-1918), the monk Leontius Karyagin (1870-1918), the monk Stephen, the novice George Timofeev (1880-1918), the novice Sergius Galin, the novice Hilarion Pravdin and the novice John Sretensky. The funeral service and burial of the martyrs were performed by Archimandrite Joasaph Udalov, later bishop and hieromartyr. They were canonized in 1998 as saints of local veneration in the diocese of Kazan and numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia by the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000, for veneration in the whole Church. George Timofeev is commemorated, according to the Azbyka page, on 10 September and on 17 October.