Roman Marchenko

Holy Hieromartyr Roman Marchenko, a priest, was rector of the church of the Protection of the Mother of God in the Cossack settlement of Nadezhdinskaya, Verny district, Semirechye region (today the town of Issyk, in Kazakhstan), and was killed in the autumn of 1929, defending the church.

The closing of the church became a great tragedy. The Cossacks of the settlement fiercely resisted the sacrilegious acts of the godless authorities, and to quell them mounted militia was brought into the settlement. Several dozen parishioners were arrested, and the priest was killed. St Roman was glorified among the saints at the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in the year 2000.

He is commemorated on 16 September and on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, in the new style.