Iraida Tikhova

Saint Iraida Tikhova (1896-1967) the confessor was a teacher, choir director, associate of Archbishop Seraphim (Samoylovich) and keeper of his archive. The Holy Synod of the Russian Church numbered her on 6 October 2001 among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, in the rank of confessor. She died on 7 August 1967 in the village of Kotovo.

Youth

She was born in 1896 in the village of Kotovo, Myshkin district, Yaroslavl governorate (now the Uglich district), in a devout family of middle peasants, Osip Ivanovich and Anna Alexandrovna Tikhov. She was the seventh and youngest child. Her father was churchwarden of the Dormition church in Kotovo. She completed three classes of village school. From childhood she wanted to become a teacher, but because of her family's poverty she had to gain her knowledge by self-⁠education. In 1917 she met Archimandrite Seraphim (Samoylovich), abbot of the Intercession and Saint Paisius monastery of Uglich, two kilometres from Kotovo. In 1918 she entered the one-⁠year courses at the teachers' seminary in Uglich and studied with all zeal; at the end only three girls passed all the tests, among them Iraida. From 1919 she worked as a teacher at the school in the village of Arkhangelskoye, eleven kilometres from the town, with seventy to a hundred pupils, whom she divided into two groups, with no notebooks, pens or pencils, and with difficulty she found means to buy the children what they needed.

In 1922 she attended evening theological courses at Uglich organized by Bishop Seraphim (Samoylovich) of Uglich. In the same year she gave great help to Bishop Seraphim and his associates arrested on the charge of resisting the confiscation of church valuables. She had become one of the bishop's closest helpers, with a relation of great trust between them. She was choir director at the Dormition church in Kotovo and an active member of the parish council. After Metropolitan Sergius's Declaration of 1927 she joined the "non-⁠commemorators", refusing to sing in the choir so as not to commemorate at the service the deputy of the patriarchal locum tenens, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky).

Keeper of the archive

Probably before leaving for exile at Mogilev in 1928, from which he was not to return, Archbishop Seraphim gave her his personal archive for safekeeping. Then, throughout his life, from camps and exile, until his martyrdom in 1937, he wrote her letters and sent her many important documents. The last letter to Iraida was written on 31 October 1937, four days before he was shot. In a letter from his Mogilev exile he wrote: "Dear Raya, how wonderful, good, gentle you are, and all the love and tenderness of Christ. Thank you for everything, and for this visit, for your indulgence of my spirit's anguish... Be at peace, I respected you so deeply and saw so much of your devotion and love that I always felt at peace in my life. I put too much on your shoulders and gave your heart very much work... Nothing can darken your bright, good image, always ready for self-⁠sacrifice, for Golgotha."

In 1931 she was arrested, charged with supporting condemned clergy, and sentenced to three years in labour camps. After her release she was refused reinstatement at the local school. In 1934 she was arrested for "anti-⁠Soviet activity" and spent twenty-⁠four days in prison, then was released because the charge was not proved. Returning to Kotovo, she became a teacher at the school of the nearby village of Pokrovskie Gorki, which had earlier belonged to the closed Intercession men's monastery. In the 1930s she became the link between like-⁠minded church figures held in various places of imprisonment and exile: Metropolitan Cyril (Smirnov), Archimandrite Neophytus (Osipov), Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh), Bishop Athanasius (Sakharov), the nun Xenia (Krasavina) and Archbishop Seraphim. Her circle of personal and written contacts was very wide. Often contacts between prominent church figures were made through her. She organized help for them, gathered parcels and travelled to them in exile, among other things to carry letters from one to another.

War and exile

In 1941, with the building of the Uglich hydroelectric station, the school and the remains of the monastery were flooded. She did not return to teaching but was choir director at the Dormition church in Kotovo. At the beginning of 1938 she met at Uglich Bishop Basil (Preobrazhensky), released from prison, and invited him to live in her house. Settling in April 1942 at Kotovo, Bishop Basil agreed with the local priest Constantine Sokolov to serve on weekdays vespers and the liturgy for a small circle of believers, at which Iraida Tikhova directed and sang. A Gospel circle was also organized, and later in the bathhouse of Iraida Osipovna's house a house church was made. Shortly before her arrest she gave her archive (a suitcase of documents) for safekeeping to her friend Mania Selivanovskaya, of the village of Selivanovo.

On 5 November 1943 she was arrested, together with Bishop Basil, the hieromonk Damascene (Zhabinsky) and her relatives: her brother Ivan Osipovich, her sisters Anna and Serafima and her aunt Vassa Ivanovna Tikhov. She was charged with anti-⁠Soviet agitation, with participating in an illegal anti-⁠Soviet church organization, the "True Orthodox Church", and with organizing an underground house church. In the search of her house an antimension, a panagia, two silver crosses, two icons, a full bishop's vestment and all the church utensils needed for services were seized. Bishop Basil broke under investigation, admitted the investigators' inventions about his creating an anti-⁠Soviet organization and named concrete "participants", among them Iraida Tikhova. She did not plead guilty and categorically denied the existence of a secret organization and her participation in it. On 7 October 1944 she was sentenced to five years' exile in the Komi ASSR. She lived at Syktyvkar and worked at a leather and footwear combine, cleaning fat from seal skins, very heavy work. In 1945 she wrote to the NKVD asking for a review of her case, but was refused. She was released on 6 November 1948.

The last years

After exile she stayed for a time at Syktyvkar, then returned to Kotovo, with her health broken and her hands and feet frostbitten. She led a devout life and gave shelter in her house to wanderers, novices and nuns, many of whom had only recently been released from exile and camps. In 1954-1955 the Dormition church was closed; a commission from Uglich took the valuables and utensils, and afterwards the church was looted from time to time. Iraida Osipovna kept the church keys with her and did all she could to prevent its ruin: she drove off importunate tourists and replaced broken locks, but could not stop the destruction. From 1955 she looked after her brother, a pilot, paralysed after an accident, moving with him into a little bathhouse that was easier to heat in winter. She died on 7 August 1967 in the village of Kotovo and was buried in the village cemetery beside the graves of her relatives, near the ruins of the Dormition church.

The suitcase with Iraida Tikhova's archive was found in 2002 in the attic of Mania Selivanovskaya's house, under a haystack, by her nieces. The suitcase came to the rector of the church at Aniskino and, in 2012, was given to the Saint Tikhon Orthodox University. On 6 August 2022, in Uglich, a round table on the confessor Iraida Tikhova was held, fifty-⁠five years after her repose.