Sergius Guskov

Holy Venerable Martyr Sergius Guskov was a hieromonk and sacristan of the Raifa Hermitage near Kazan and was shot on 10 August 1930. He is a locally venerated saint of the Kazan diocese.

Monastic life Born Pavel Ivanovich Guskov in 1875 into a devout peasant family, he was the brother of the nun Barbara (in the world Vera Guskova). After the village school he helped his father on the farm and dreamed of the monastic life. On 1 May 1898 he entered the Raifa Hermitage as a novice, and on 18 June 1906 he was tonsured a monk. He was ordained hierodeacon in 1909 and hieromonk on 15 April 1910, and on 12 February 1914 he was confirmed as sacristan. In September 1918, at the request of the brethren, he was named acting abbot and had to lead the monastery's life in a hard time: services were held in looted churches. After Archimandrite Theodosius (Luzgin) became abbot in July 1920, Father Sergius stood in for him several times.

The closing of the monastery and the arrests The monastery was closed in June 1928. Peasants of the surrounding villages formed a community into which seven of the thirty former residents entered, and the Raifa church became a parish church. Father Sergius settled in the village of Belo-⁠Bezvodnaya. The monks went on performing the sacraments, hearing confessions, baptizing, burying and even serving the Liturgy, sometimes in the church and sometimes at home. In 1929 arrests began, on the pretext that some monks were hiding church vessels. Father Sergius was arrested and at his interrogation said he had not handed over the chalice for Holy Communion for religious reasons, since he could not give it up himself. On 20 December 1929 he was unexpectedly released on condition that he not leave; this is said to have been a calculation of the authorities to calm the anger of the peasants and to see how the other monks would behave.

On 23 January 1930 new arrests took place in Belo-⁠Bezvodnaya: nineteen people, all the monks living there and several churchmen. Father Sergius was arrested with his sister, the nun Barbara, and taken to Kazan. Three charges were brought against the monks: agitation, the killing of seven Red Army soldiers in 1918, in which no monk of Raifa had taken part, and the concealment of monastery property. On 20 February 1930 the OGPU troika of the Tatar Republic condemned them to death. After five martyrs were shot on 5 April, Father Sergius was tormented for months more, as sacristan and former acting abbot, to learn where he had hidden the sacristy treasures, but they learned nothing. He was shot on 10 August 1930; it is told that when he was led from his cell he could no longer walk by himself and two guards dragged him by the arms.

In 1996 he was numbered among the locally venerated saints of the Kazan diocese. The source says his memory is kept on 14 January (old style), the day of the venerable fathers killed at Sinai and Raifa, which is 27 January in the new style; he is also commemorated on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and on 17 October in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kazan.