Isaac Bobrakov of Optina

Holy Venerable Martyr Isaac of Optina (Isaac the Younger or Isaac II, in the world Ivan Nikolaevich Bobrakov, formerly written in error Bobrikov) was an archimandrite of the Russian Church and the last abbot of the old Optina Hermitage. He was born in 1865 in the village of Ostrov, Maloarkhangelsk district, Oryol province, and was shot on 8 January 1938 at the Tesnitsa firing range in the Tula region. He is a saint among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia and in the Synaxis of the Elders of Optina. The word Younger is added so that he is not confused with Schema-⁠archimandrite Isaac the Elder (1810 to 1894), another elder of Optina.

He was born into a devout and deeply believing peasant family (his father died a schemamonk of Optina). He finished primary school. In 1884 he entered Optina as a novice, and was able to see Venerable Hieromonk Ambrose alive. He was hierodeacon (1898), hieromonk (1902) and received the pectoral cross (1911). After the death of Archimandrite Xenophon he was elected abbot of Optina and received the rank of archimandrite. In 1916 he received the Order of Saint Anne, third class. He was a member by right of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church of 1917 to 1918, took part in the first and second sessions and was a member of the seventh and eleventh sections.

From 1918 he was the head of an agricultural artel, under whose guise the monastery still lived. He bore with firmness all the hardships of persecution, giving an example of true confession. After the official dissolution of the monastery, in 1923, he served at the church of Saint George in Kozelsk, and the monks of Optina and nuns of Shamordino took his blessing. When the authorities threatened him with death or proposed that he leave, he answered that he would not run from his cross.

In 1929 he was imprisoned four months. In 1930 he moved to Belev, in the Tula region. In 1932 he was imprisoned five months. In 1937 he was accused of founding an underground monastery of Tikhonite orientation, carrying on systematic counter-⁠revolutionary activity, and he refused to bear false witness. On 30 December 1937 the special three-⁠man tribunal of the political police for the Tula region sentenced him to death. The sentence was carried out on 8 January 1938, on the day of the Synaxis of the Mother of God. He was buried secretly, with other martyrs, in a forest at the 162nd kilometre of the Simferopol highway.

In the year 2000 he was glorified among the saints. His commemoration is on 8 January.