Martha Testova

Saint Martha Testova, venerable martyr, was a nun of the Diveevo monastery and died in the Karlag camp on 26 April 1941. She was glorified among the saints as a venerable martyr in 2002. She is commemorated on 13 April by the old calendar (26 April on the new style), in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia and in the Synaxes of the Saints of Nizhny Novgorod and of Diveevo.

She was born in 1883 in the village of Arga, Temnikov district, Tambov governorate, into a peasant family, as Martha Timofeevna Testova. In 1914 she entered the Diveevo convent, where her sister by blood, Pelagia, was already living. She was tonsured keeping her lay name. After the revolution and the closing of the monastery she settled in the village of Razvilye in the Nizhny Novgorod governorate.

On 18 November 1937 the nun Martha was arrested. She was accused of systematic counter-⁠revolutionary agitation aimed at discrediting the Soviet government and the communist party. On 13 December 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced her to eight years in a labour camp. In May 1938 she was sent to the Karaganda camp. The harsh camp conditions broke her health, and the medical commission judged her an invalid and sent her to the hospital of the Spasskoe section of Karlag. Martha died in the camp hospital of the settlement of Spasskoe on 26 April 1941 and was buried in the local cemetery. On 7 October 2002, at a session of the Holy Synod, the nun Martha (Testova) was numbered among the saints, the new martyrs and confessors of Russia, and her day of commemoration was set as 13 (26) April.