Sergius Lavrov

Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Lavrov was an archpriest in Tambov and died in prison on 18 January 1934, suffering for the faith and for his church.

The priest

He was born in 1872 in the village of Kuliki, Morshansk district, Tambov province, in the family of the priest Nicholas Lavrov. He graduated from the Tambov Seminary in 1893 and was a teacher in a village school. In 1894 he was ordained priest in the village of Vyazovaya Vershina, and in 1897 he was moved to the village of Volkhonshchina, where he served twenty years. Between 1903 and 1911 he built a new stone church there and received for it, in 1913, the Order of Saint Anne, third class; in 1916 he was given the pectoral cross, and in 1917 he was moved to the cathedral of Tambov. In February 1917 he was elected at the congress of the clergy as chairman of the diocesan candle factory, a post that was brief because the Bolsheviks came to power. In 1920 he was appointed to the church of Saints Peter and Paul in Tambov and elected to the Diocesan Council.

Trials

In May 1923 he was arrested on a charge of breaking locks and stealing church vessels, a charge not confirmed, and was released after two weeks. In 1925 the Renovationists tried to drive the Orthodox out of Tambov and to seize the church of Saints Peter and Paul; Father Sergius and the parishioners defended the church, and on 19 August he was arrested and kept in prison for three and a half months. On 30 January 1926, leaving the church after the vigil, he was attacked by an unknown man who struck him three times with a Finnish knife. The wounds were grave, and for about two months he was near death, but he recovered, returned to the service, and was raised to archpriest.

In October 1927 Bishop Vassian (Pyatnitsky) of Kozlov received from Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) the instruction to commemorate him and the authorities at the services, and kept it hidden for a year, announcing it in July 1928. The church warden and many believers of Saints Peter and Paul asked Father Sergius what he thought; he answered that since this commemoration had brought confusion and division into a life already troubled, the priests of the church would refrain from introducing it. Further service became difficult and he went off the staff; he served at home and in the homes of his spiritual children, and in the churches of priests who thought as he did, not a few at that time in Tambov.

Arrest and death

In 1932 the OGPU resolved to arrest the best-⁠known priests and authoritative laymen of Tambov who did not agree with the position of Metropolitan Sergius. On 20 June 1932 Father Sergius and other priests were arrested and put in the city prison. A week later he was questioned and, asking to write his own testimony, admitted only that he had talked too much about Soviet power, though not before crowds, and said he had taken no active action. The indictment of 22 November 1932 charged him with systematic anti-⁠Soviet agitation, considering Soviet power illegitimate, and using the religious prejudices of the masses. On 1 January 1933 an OGPU troika sentenced him to five years of exile in the Northern Territory, but he was not sent there. In the Tambov prison he fell gravely ill and died in the prison hospital on 18 January 1934.

He is commemorated on 18 January 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 10 August in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tambov and on 23 September in the Synaxis of the Saints of Lipetsk.