Pachomius Kedrov

Pachomius Kedrov (Peter Petrovich Kedrov) was archbishop of Chernigov, born on 30 July 1876 at Yaransk, in the Vyatka province, and died in 1937 after years of prison and exile under the Soviet regime. He is counted among the New Martyrs of Russia; the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia glorified him in 1981.

He was born into a priest's family and was the elder brother of the hieromartyr Averky (Polycarp Kedrov, 1879 to 1937). He was humble, gentle and loved the Church greatly. He graduated from the Vyatka Seminary (1896) and the Kazan Theological Academy (1900). It is told that, wishing to fulfil literally the Lord's word about the eye that causes to stumble, he tried one night to burn out an eye with a candle; the sources tell the incident in two ways. He was tonsured a monk in 1898, ordained hieromonk in 1899, worked in church schools and from 1906 was abbot of the Derman Monastery. In 1911 he was consecrated bishop of Novgorod-⁠Seversk, vicar of Chernigov, and in 1917 he was elected by the congress of clergy and laity bishop of Chernigov. He took part in the Local Council of 1917 to 1918.

After the revolution he was arrested as a hostage in 1921 and again in 1922, when he was exiled. He received the title of archbishop on 29 November 1923. Arrested in 1925 with the supporters of Metropolitan Peter, he was exiled to the Komi region, where he served and preached. He returned to Chernigov in 1928 and was tonsured into the great schema. Under Soviet rule the authorities once tried to arrest him during the Liturgy, but the crowd of believers prevented them; in the end he was taken. On 16 October 1930 he was arrested as an "enemy of the revolution" and sentenced to six years. He passed through Solovki, worked on the White Sea Canal and was held in an invalids' camp at Kuzema.

In 1936 he returned to Yaransk, to the house of his brother, the priest Nicholas, gravely ill and with paralysis of the face. After his brother's death he was placed in the psychiatric hospital at Kotelnich, where he died in 1937 (the sources give 11 November and 11 December). His grave was honoured by the faithful, who took earth from it for healing. His relics now rest in the Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Kotelnich. He is commemorated on 15 May.