Onesimus Pylaev

Holy Hieromartyr Onesimus (in the world Mikhail Vladimirovich Pylaev) was bishop of Tula, born on 5 September 1876 in the village of Kuya, Belozersk district, Novgorod governorate, and shot on 27 February 1938. He was numbered among the saints by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2001. He is commemorated on 14 February (27 February new style), and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tula on 22 September. Our data also gives 5 October and 9 February, which the source does not support.

Army priest

He was born into the family of a psalm-⁠reader. In 1896 he graduated from the Novgorod seminary and began to serve as psalm-⁠reader at the military cathedral of the Archangel Michael in Kars. After a few years, in 1902 or 1904, he was ordained priest and served the 4th Rifle Regiment. When the Russo-⁠Japanese War began and the regiment was due to go to the front, Father Michael regarded the war with disapproval, thinking that the people did not understand its meaning and that its consequences might be heavy. He did not hide his views, and his superiors recalled him from the front and appointed him to the 37th Yekaterinburg Regiment. When the war of 1914 began, he went to the front with the regiment and went through the whole war with his flock, the soldiers. He was raised to the rank of archpriest.

In the civil war he was first clerk of the 1st Brigade, then, in 1918 and 1919, treasurer in the 11th Nizhny Novgorod Division of the Red Army. In 1920 he was appointed priest at the church of the Holy Trinity in Verkhny Posad, Nizhny Novgorod. He was widowed, and on 13 March 1926 was tonsured a monk, and on 15 March consecrated bishop of Krasnye Baki, vicar of the Nizhny Novgorod diocese. The consecration was performed by Metropolitan Sergius and Bishops Damian (Voskresensky) and Macarius (Znamensky). Since he had been forbidden for three years to live in large cities for taking part in an illegal theological circle, he chose Votkinsk as his residence, and on 13 April 1926 Metropolitan Sergius appointed him bishop of Votkinsk, vicar of the Sarapul diocese.

Prison and ministry at Tula

On 4 February 1928 he was arrested for spreading illegal literature of a counter-⁠revolutionary character and on 22 June sentenced to three years in the special camp at Solovki. He later recalled that in the camp he was given, among other tasks, the lighting of the Solovki lighthouse; he travelled there even in storm, lying in the boat, and on arrival could not light the lantern for the cold. Before the end of the term, on 3 January 1931, he received another three years of exile in the Northern Region and was sent to Arkhangelsk, where he lived until August 1933.

Immediately after his early release, from 22 November 1933, he was appointed bishop of Tula. Despite the prohibitions of the authorities, he helped many exiled and arrested clergy with parcels and letters, placed in parishes the priests returning from exile and prison and gave them material help. He performed monastic tonsures, which the authorities also disapproved. The cathedral of the diocese during his administration was the small church of Saint Elijah, formerly a parish church, which at hierarchical services was crowded with people.

Martyrdom

On 18 December 1935 he was arrested on the charge of leading a counter-⁠revolutionary grouping and imprisoned at Butyrka in Moscow; 26 other people, mostly priests and monastics, were arrested with him. By decision of a special board of the NKVD he was sent for five years to the North and lived at Kargopol. On Christmas Eve, 6 January 1938, he was arrested again, on 13 January sentenced to death and on 27 February shot.

At the session of the Holy Synod on 17 July 2001 it was decided to include his name in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia of the twentieth century. He was entered also in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tula, which is celebrated on 22 September.