Sergius Chernukhin

Holy Venerable Martyr Sergius Chernukhin was hegumen of the Monastery of Saint Daniel in Moscow and died a martyr in a camp in the Amur region on 9 November 1942, having twice suffered persecution for confessing the faith.

He was born on 3 February 1879 in the village of Semyonovka, Buzuluk district, Samara province, in the family of the peasant Savely Chernukhin, and at baptism received the name Simeon. In 1900 he entered the Monastery of Saint Daniel in Moscow; on 10 January 1907 he was received as a novice, on 15 May 1910 he was tonsured into the mantle with the name Sergius and served at the choir. He was ordained hierodeacon in 1911 and hieromonk in 1915, received the pectoral cross in 1920, and in 1923 was raised to hegumen and served in the cathedral of the Holy Trinity and the church of the Protection of the Mother of God of the monastery, and after their closure in the church of the Resurrection beside the monastery.

In December 1930 mass arrests of clergy and monastics took place in Moscow. On 13 January 1931 the hegumen was questioned about his attitude to Soviet power. He said that the Church was indeed going through great persecution, but that it was sent for our sins and that every authority is from God and must be obeyed. The investigators were not satisfied with this explanation, and on 8 February 1931 he was sentenced to three years of exile in the Northern Territory, passing through Arkhangelsk and Pinega to the village of Kuloy, where he stayed until the end of the term. He returned to Moscow on 28 February 1934 but was not allowed to live there; he settled at Kashira and was then assigned to the church of Saint Nicholas in Nikolskoe-⁠Golovinskoe, Shakhovskaya district, where he served until the wave of arrests in 1937.

In November 1937 two chairmen of the village council stated that he had refused to subscribe to the state loan and spoke of a power that robbed him through taxes. He was arrested on 1 December 1937, held at Volokolamsk and questioned the next day; he denied any counter-⁠revolutionary agitation. On 3 December an NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years in a camp. In February 1938 he reached a camp in the Amur region, was moved to Bushuy on 30 December 1940 and to Svobodny on 1 March 1941. He fell asleep in the Svobodny camp on 9 November 1942 and was buried in an unknown place.

The saint is commemorated on 9 November (27 October in the old style) and, in the new style, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.