Sebastian of Karaganda

Saint Sebastian of Karaganda (born Stephen Vasilievich Fomin, 1884 to 1966) was an archimandrite of the Russian Orthodox Church, a disciple of the elders of Optina and a spiritual father to the faithful of Soviet Kazakhstan, where he was sent to a labour camp and remained after his release. The Church honours him as a confessor of the faith in the years of atheist persecution. He was first glorified locally in 1997 and then for the whole Russian Church in 2000.

Childhood and Optina

He was born in 1884 in the village of Kosmodemyanskoye in the Oryol region, to a peasant family, the son of Basil and Martha. His father died when he was four and his mother a year later, and from the age of five he was brought up in the household of his elder brother Hilarion. His middle brother, Roman, became a monk at Optina with the name Raphael.

On 3 January 1909 Stephen entered the skete of Optina as cell attendant to Elder Joseph (Litovkin). In 1917 he was tonsured a monk with the name Sebastian. Soon afterwards the monastery was officially closed, though it lived on for a time disguised as an agricultural cooperative. In 1923 services were stopped altogether and the authorities began to expel the monks. In those years Father Sebastian was guided spiritually by Elder Nectarius of Optina.

Priesthood and the camp

In 1927 he was ordained priest by the Bishop of Kaluga. After Elder Nectarius reposed in 1928, he came to the town of Kozlov (called Michurinsk from 1932), where he served at the parish church of Saint Elijah until his arrest in 1933. He was sentenced to seven years of forced labour, sent first to cut timber in the Tambov region and, after a year, moved to Karlag, to the settlement of Dolinka, where he arrived on 26 May 1934.

Karaganda

Released on 29 April 1939, he stayed in the village of Bolshaya Mikhailovka near Karaganda. There he celebrated services in secret in private houses, without the permission of the authorities and without being registered as a minister of religion. The community gathered around him had a room for prayer from the 1940s, and in 1955, following a decree of the USSR Council of Ministers on the opening of places of worship, it was allowed to register. A church was built and consecrated in honour of the Nativity of the Mother of God.

On 22 December 1957 Archbishop Joseph (Chernov) of Petropavlovsk and Kustanai raised him to the rank of archimandrite and gave him a patriarchal diploma for his diligent service to the Church. In 1964, on his name day, he received an episcopal staff, a rare distinction for an archimandrite. On 16 April 1966 he received the great schema from Bishop Pitirim (Nechaev) of Volokolamsk, who came to him for the purpose.

He reposed in the Lord on 19 April 1966 (6 April Old Style), on Radonitsa, the day of commemoration of the departed after Pascha. He was buried in the Old Mikhailovka Cemetery at Karaganda.

Glorification

In 1997 he was numbered among the saints venerated locally in the diocese of Alma-⁠Ata. On 22 October 1997 his relics were found, and since 2 May 1998 they have rested in the Cathedral of the Entry of the Mother of God into the Temple at Karaganda. In August 2000 the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church counted him among the new martyrs and confessors, for veneration throughout the Church. He is commemorated on 6 April (Old Style), and on 22 October the finding of his relics is kept.