Pachomius Ionov

Saint Pachomius Ionov, a hieromonk and venerable martyr, is commemorated together with Holy Hieromartyr Eugene, Metropolitan of Nizhny Novgorod, Holy Hieromartyr Stephen Kreidich, a priest, and the venerable martyrs Eugene Vyzhva and Nicholas Ashchepev, hegumens. They were all shot together on 7 September 1937 (20 September, new style), in the Karaganda region. The Azbyka page mostly tells the life of Metropolitan Eugene; of Father Pachomius it says only that he died with them.

Eugene (in the world Semyon Zernov) was born in 1877 in Moscow province, in the family of a deacon, graduated from the Moscow seminary and Theological Academy, and was tonsured a monk in 1900. He was rector of the seminary in Irkutsk, then bishop of Kirensk and, from 1914, bishop of the Amur and Blagoveshchensk. He took part in the Council of 1917-1918. Arrested in 1923, he was released after the whole city rose in his defence, and Patriarch Tikhon raised him to archbishop. In 1924 he was arrested again and spent until 1927 in the camp at Solovki, where he took part in drawing up the Solovki Epistle; exile in the Zyryan land followed. From 1934 he governed the diocese of Nizhny Novgorod. Arrested again in 1935, he was sentenced to three years in the Karaganda camp, and in September 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced him to death. He was shot on 7 September, old style, together with the four named above.

All were canonized as New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia by the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000. Saint Pachomius Ionov is commemorated on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, on 12 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Penza Metropolis, and on 20 September, in the new style.