Mardarius Isaev

Holy Venerable Martyr Mardarius Isaev, a hieromonk (1886-1938), was a peasant of the Tver province, baptized Michael, who served as a beloved confessor in a parish near Uglich and died shot in the Stalinist persecution. Born on 4 January 1886, he lived with his parents until twenty-⁠four. In 1921 he entered the Zheltikov monastery in Tver, then was cell-⁠attendant, reader and subdeacon in Rybinsk, received tonsure with the name Mardarius and was ordained hierodeacon (1924) and hieromonk (1925). From 1929 he served in the village of Derevenki near Uglich, where he grew close to Archbishop Seraphim (Samoilovich), who in fact led the Yaroslavl diocese.

The shepherd of Derevenki

He made his cell in a small bathhouse at the edge of the village. A priest called by the OGPU to describe him said that he was an ascetic monk, zealous for the service and the monastic rule, who gave no sermons but heard long confessions and had great authority. He helped the families of arrested priests with money and was loved for his gentleness. After the arrest of Archbishop Seraphim in 1928 the Uglich vicariate was placed under another bishop, but Father Mardarius went on commemorating Seraphim, holding the new arrangement to serve the persecutors. Believers came to his almost daily services from fifty kilometres away, from villages and towns, and he prepared for arrest.

The arrests

He was arrested in February 1933 and said at the investigation that he agreed with the archbishop, that his confession lasted five to ten minutes and that he had not spoken against collectivization. His parishioners went to Uglich to free him, and in July he was released on condition of leaving the district; he moved to Rybinsk. In 1935 he was appointed to the village of Yuryevskoe, where he resumed monastic services. On 9 January 1937 he was arrested again. For months he denied the charges of anti-⁠Soviet agitation, of ties with believers of other parishes and of disrupting collective-⁠farm work by services, saying people came of their own will. At the trial of 10 December 1937 he did not admit guilt, and the hearing was postponed; by then he had been held almost a year.

Martyrdom

The case was given to an extrajudicial troika, which sentenced him on 17 March 1938. He was shot the next day, 18 March 1938, and buried in an unmarked common grave. He is commemorated on 18 March, the day of his death, in the new style, on 5 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl and on the movable day around 7 February in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church.