Raphael Tyupin

Holy Venerable Martyr Raphael Tyupin, a hieromonk, was a monk of Optina and the parish priest at Sharapovo, near Moscow, and was shot at the Butovo range on 11 December 1937.

He was born on 20 July 1886 in the village of Yurty, Livny district, Oryol province, in the family of the peasant George Tyupin, and at baptism received the name Boris. He attended the village school. In 1912 he entered the Optina Monastery in Kozelsk and worked as a cook. In 1914 he was called to the war, was soon wounded and came to the hospital then set up at Optina; after recovery he stayed in the monastery. After the closure of the monastery, in 1918, he was called to the front again, fell ill and stayed at Livny, from where he went to Moscow. In 1922 he was tonsured a monk at the Zlatoust Monastery, with the name Raphael, and in 1926 he was ordained hieromonk. From 1927 to 1930 he served in the village of Latynino, Kaluga region, then was appointed rector of the church of the icon of the Mother of God Joy of All Who Sorrow in the village of Sharapovo, Lopasnya district (today Chekhov), Moscow region.

He was a zealous pastor and a man of prayer; his fame as a holy man whose prayers the Lord hears spread quickly among the peasants, who came to him for prayer and counsel. The authorities decided to arrest him, together with the psalmist, the churchwarden and two other parishioners, on the charge that they had wrecked two collective farms, spread rumours of war and of the coming overthrow of Soviet power, used possessed women, held anti-⁠Soviet sermons and healed by prayer a possessed woman. The file keeps most details of this healing. The young woman, twenty-⁠four, a worker in an institute, had fallen at a funeral in a state of unrestraint; the doctors could not help her, the priest of Khlevino read prayers and she thrashed about. Her husband took her to Father Raphael, who read the prayers over her six times and anointed her with blessed oil; each time she felt lighter, at last she felt entirely well and thanked him by embracing his vestment. The priest of Khlevino told the investigator that he had never seen the like. Father Raphael said, at the interrogation, that he had not healed her, but Jesus Christ had, and that he was only His servant.

Arrested on 14 April 1932 and held at Serpukhov, he was sentenced on 3 June 1932 to three years of exile in Kazakhstan. After exile he served in several parishes in the Moscow region, but in 1936-1937 the authorities refused his registration every time; for a time he worked as steward at the diocesan administration of Metropolitan Theophanes in Semyonov, who was arrested in August 1937. Then Father Raphael settled in the village of Maklino, Maloyaroslavets district, and lived by shoemaking.

The second half of 1937 brought the last and bloodiest period of the persecution. For his arrest the chairman of the collective farm, a stableman and a young Komsomol member, the son of his landlords, were questioned, and they signed records stating that the priest held prayer services in peasants' houses, baptized children and gathered the little ones to pray, and that he was dangerous to the collective farm. Arrested on 29 November 1937 and interrogated on 2 December, he denied all this and admitted no guilt. On 9 December an NKVD troika sentenced him to death. He was shot on 11 December 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo range near Moscow.

He is commemorated on 11 December, on 29 May (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, on 31 July in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kaluga, on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow and on 24 October in the Synaxis of all the Saints who shone at Optina, in the new style.