Hierotheus (Afonin)

Saint Hieromartyr Hierotheus (Afonin), bishop of Nikolsk, vicar of the diocese of Veliky Ustyug and North Dvina, was killed for the faith in the time of the atheist persecution in Russia, on 16 May 1928. He was born on 26 April 1893 in the village of Pogorelovka in Kaluga province, into a peasant family, and was called in the world Timothy Dmitrievich Afonin. He grew up in a school for orphan boys at the Saint Nicholas monastery of Belaya Gora in Perm, attended a seminary or gymnasium and worked as a teacher. He returned to the monastery, received monastic tonsure with the name Hierotheus, served as choir director and was later ordained priest. After the monastery was closed he served in the diocese of Perm.

In 1923 he was consecrated bishop of Taiga and then assigned to Shadrinsk in the diocese of Ekaterinburg, where he was the only Orthodox hierarch. His consecration was recognised by Patriarch Tikhon, who temporarily entrusted to him the administration of the diocese of Ekaterinburg. After several appointments that he did not actually take up, on 19 March 1924 Patriarch Tikhon named him bishop of Nikolsk, vicar of the diocese of Veliky Ustyug. He was arrested in 1925 and was beloved by the faithful.

In September 1927 he sent the diocese the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, which he regarded very harshly, and in January 1928 he joined the Josephites, the current that rejected Metropolitan Sergius's policy of compromise with the Soviet power. Of the 23 parishes of the Nikolsk district, 22 followed his position. The synod of Metropolitan Sergius retired him on 10 February 1928 and forbade him to serve on 11 April; he did not accept these penalties. He asked the faithful not to cooperate with the new authorities but not to enter into open conflict with them.

In the spring of 1928 he made, on foot, his last journey through the villages of his parishes, received with flowers and with homemade rugs. The authorities wanted to arrest him; on 2 May the peasants freed him, and afterward he hid in the forest with the help of women of the village of Vostrovo. A militia chief, disguised as a peasant, found him on 6 May and shot him in the head. Brought the next day to Nikolsk, on the way with his hand struck by the guards whenever he raised it in blessing, he was sent by steamer to Veliky Ustyug, where he died on 16 May 1928 in the prison hospital. He was buried in secret in the old cemetery of the town.

After his death a community of "Hierotheans" arose in the region, which lasted for several decades. His name was entered in the list of new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church Outside Russia, prepared for the canonisation of 1981 and published at the end of the 1990s. In 1999 a cross was set up in the forest at the place of his wounding, and an icon of him is in the cathedral of Shadrinsk. He is commemorated on 31 May as a new hieromartyr, by the New Calendar.