Sergius Kochurov

Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Kochurov was a priest in Ryazan province and the Moscow region, and he died a martyr in a camp in the Sverdlovsk region on 12 December 1941.

The priest He was born on 17 May 1892 in the village of Derevyagino, Sapozhok district, Ryazan province, in the family of the priest John Kochurov. He graduated from the Ryazan Seminary in 1913 and in 1915 married Claudia, daughter of the priest Peter Solovyov; in the same year he was ordained deacon and then priest. In the time of persecution he served in the village of Ukholovo. In 1929 the authorities demanded of him a tax beyond his means and, for non-⁠payment, took his property. He moved to the church of Saint Elijah in Sandyri on the edge of Kolomna; when this too was closed, in the summer of 1938 he began to serve at the church of the Holy Trinity in the village of Troitskoe, Istra district. His wife and daughter stayed in Sandyri, since there was nowhere to live at Troitskoe, and he settled in the watchman's room under the church.

Trial and death In the spring of 1940 informers reported that he had said that everything had been taken from him and he had been driven out of his house, and that people were being driven away, tormented and tortured, that mass repression was embittering the people, but that all this was only for a time, since those who take the sword will perish by the sword. One informer came to him with a bottle of strong wine to loosen his tongue, but the priest refused the wine and would not discuss politics. Father Sergius rejected all the charges: he said that he had never slandered the leaders of the country and that, as a believer and a priest, he regarded Soviet power according to the word of Scripture, that we must obey the authorities and that there is no authority except from God. Although there was no proof, on 28 September 1940 the Special Council of the NKVD sentenced him to eight years in a camp, and on 5 October he was sent to Ivdellag in the Sverdlovsk region. He fell asleep on 12 December 1941 in Bogoslovlag in the same region and was buried in an unknown place.

He is commemorated on 12 December and, in the new style, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, on 11 February in the Synaxis of the Saints of Yekaterinburg, on 23 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of Ryazan and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.