Peter Tokarev

Holy Hieromartyr Peter Tokarev (Pyotr Nikitich Tokarev) was born in 1881 in the family of a townsman of Tula province. He finished the seminary and the Demidov Law Lyceum, with the degree of candidate of legal sciences. In 1910 he was ordained priest by Archbishop Tikhon of Yaroslavl and Rostov, the future patriarch. He served at the Transfiguration prison church in Lyubim, then at the Epiphany cathedral, and from 1919 in Yaroslavl. He had an exceptional gift of speech; listening to his sermons on repentance and fidelity to Christ and His Church, the parishioners wept.

He was arrested twice, in 1923 and 1930, for anti-⁠Soviet agitation, an attempt to found a counter-⁠revolutionary organization and help given to exiled clergy. In 1937, while serving at the church of Saint George in the village of Obnorskoe, Lyubim district, he was arrested for the third time. At the single interrogation he did not admit guilt of anti-⁠state activity. On 19 August 1937 he was condemned to death and the same day received martyrdom. He was numbered among the holy hieromartyrs in the year 2000.

He is commemorated on 20 August, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and on 5 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl, in the new style.