Herodion Fedorov

Holy Confessor Herodion Fedorov, an archimandrite of the Holy Trinity St Sergius Lavra, was arrested in 1931 and died in exile in Kazakhstan at the beginning of 1933. He was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church in 2006.

In the world he was called Roman Fyodorovich Fedorov and was born in 1864 in the village of Akulovo, Pushkino district, Moscow province, in a peasant family. In 1886 he entered the Holy Trinity St Sergius Lavra, in 1891 he became a novice, on 2 March 1893 he was tonsured a monk with the name Herodion (Rodion), on 22 July 1897 he was ordained hierodeacon, and on 2 March 1903 hieromonk; his obedience was to serve prayer services at the shrine of Venerable Sergius. Between 5 January and 24 October 1905 he was with the field church of St Sergius, made by the Lavra for the village of Lysovo, near Lake Baikal. Returned to the monastery, he continued his earlier obedience.

On 1 September 1910 he was named custodian of the Holy Trinity cathedral of the Lavra. In 1912 he received the pectoral cross, and in 1914 he was confirmed as sacristan and member of the Spiritual Council of the Lavra. On 6 May 1915 he was raised to hegumen and then archimandrite. In September 1917 he was named steward of the Holy Trinity metochion in Moscow, the residence of Patriarch Tikhon, and bore this obedience until 1922, when the metochion was seized by the Renovationists. Between 1922 and 1924 he worked in a cooperative of the Lavra, and from 1924 he served as priest at the church of All Saints in the Kokuevo cemetery in Sergiev Posad.

In the spring of 1931, more than fifty priests, monks and laymen were arrested at once in the Moscow region. Archimandrite Herodion was arrested on 5 April 1931 and held at Butyrka. On the day of his arrest he was interrogated and said, in brief, that he lived alone, with a weak heart and the claims of old age, that he had gone to Moscow to a doctor, to visit a sick archpriest and to bury his brother, and that he did not admit guilt. On 15 May 1931 the indictment was drawn up: at the age of sixty-⁠seven he was charged with having been a member of the Zagorsk branch of the counter-⁠revolutionary organization True Christians, with anti-⁠Soviet agitation. On 6 June 1931 the OGPU Collegium sentenced him to five years of exile in Kazakhstan. At the beginning of 1933 he died in Kazakhstan and was buried in an unknown place.

By decision of the Holy Synod of 17 July 2006 he was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church. He is commemorated on 19 July in the Synaxis of the Saints of Radonezh and on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, in the new style.