Ignatius Teslin

Holy Hieromartyr Ignatius Teslin, a priest, in the world Ignatius Stepanovich Teslin, was born in 1873 in the village of Studenets in the Syzran district of Simbirsk province, in a peasant family, and kept a grocery shop. Later he finished the theological seminary and in 1916 was ordained a priest. In 1930 he was briefly in OGPU custody in Syzran and, after release, moved to Moscow. On 15 December 1934 he was arrested again, this time on a charge of sympathy with the murder of S. M. Kirov. He was held in the Butyrka prison, did not admit guilt and on 10 February 1935 the special council attached to the NKVD sentenced the priest Ignatius to three years of exile in Kazakhstan on a charge of counter-⁠revolutionary activity. He lived in the settlement of Maiskoe in the Beskaragai district, Pavlodar region, and worked at the Maiskoe mine.

On 25 November 1937 Father Ignatius was arrested together with Archimandrite Gennady (Rebeza), charged with counter-⁠revolutionary work carried on together with other servants of the cult. He did not admit guilt, but on 1 December 1937 the special troika of the UNKVD for East Kazakhstan region sentenced him to death and he was executed the next day. He was buried in an unknown grave. He was glorified by the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Church in the year 2000.

He is commemorated on 2 December and on 7 February, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church (new style, a movable day).