Seraphim Vasilenko

Holy Hieromartyr Seraphim Vasilenko, a protodeacon, was born on 18 July 1905 at Vitebsk, served at the church of the Resurrection in Bryansk and was shot on 13 October 1937. He was canonized in 2005.

His father, Victor Grigorievich, orphaned as a child, bound his life to the railway and had become a head of the line; his mother, Anna Ivanovna, born Rumakina, had twelve children. In 1903 his mother had gone to Sarov, at the finding of the relics of St Seraphim, and had vowed that if she had a boy she would name him Seraphim. The boy, the eleventh child, was born on the eve of the feast of the finding of the relics and received the name Seraphim. After the revolution of 1917 the family moved to Bryansk. Anna Ivanovna was very devout, and in the house vigils and prayer services were held constantly, with priests and monks as guests. The eldest brother, Leonid, became a priest and died in prison in 1939.

After three classes of gymnasium he could not obtain a theological education, but from youth he began to serve the Church: from 1921 as psalmist, from 1925 as deacon (on one of the feasts of the Mother of God). In 1929 he served at the church of St Seraphim of Sarov in Fokino, and in the same year was tried and fined forty rubles for allegedly exaggerating the number of the faithful to prevent the closing of the church; the fault was that he had written the same name twice in the fair copy of the lists for the parish council. The nuns of the Peter and Paul monastery of Bryansk, closed in 1923, looked after him: they sewed him cassocks and vestments, and he drew the faces of the cherubim for the orarion, whose wings they embroidered. He was tall, slender, neat, cheerful and loved people and animals. In the years of persecution he showed his kindness: he helped exiled or needy priests and the families of those arrested, gathering alms. Many in Bryansk knew and loved him. His twin sister, Seraphima Viktorovna, devout, sang in the choir.

From 1932 he served at the church of the Resurrection in Bryansk, where he became protodeacon. His spiritual father, Archbishop Daniel (Troitsky) of Bryansk, who died in 1934, foretold his martyr's death. In the early thirties he began to live apart at the church, so as not to bring troubles on his family; every day he went by bicycle to his parents and at night returned to the church lodge, since arrests were usually at night. In 1937, after the vigil on the eve of the Dormition, he went to his parents; after supper his mother blessed him with the family icon of the Mother of God of the Sign, as she always did, since she did not know whether she would see him again. Returning late to the lodge, he stood at prayer.

At two at night, on 28 August 1937, he was arrested and imprisoned at Bryansk. He did not admit the false charges. On 28-29 September 1937 the troika decided on his death and the confiscation of his property. He was shot on 13 October 1937. He was rehabilitated on 9 August 1989 by the prosecutor's office of the Bryansk region. His photograph was kept by his sister Nina Viktorovna, who carried it in the war in her soldier's medallion. On 16 July 2005 the Holy Synod numbered him among the saints, the New Martyrs.

He is commemorated on 13 October, on 3 October in the Synaxis of the Saints of Bryansk and on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, in the new style.