Sergius Lebedev

Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Lebedev was an archpriest in Moscow, a confessor and teacher of the Law of God at the Novodevichy Convent, and he was shot at Butovo on 22 March 1938 with three other priests.

Childhood and calling He was born on 3 July 1875 in Moscow, in the family of the deacon Paul Lebedev of the church of Saint Catherine on Bolshaya Ordynka. The family lived in Zamoskvorechye and was close to the deacon Theodore Soloviev, the future hieroschemamonk Alexis, a recluse of the Zosima Hermitage. He graduated from the Moscow Seminary in 1895, taught the Law of God in church schools, and in 1898 was ordained priest for the church of the Smolensk icon of the Mother of God at Novodevichy Convent, where he also taught at the convent's school and, later, at an orphanage. In 1901 his wife Sophia died suddenly, after about four years of marriage, leaving him with a three-⁠year-⁠old son, Boris. His sisters Catherine and Praskovia moved in with him, and then his mother, Maria Pavlovna, who took on the care of her grandson.

After his wife's death he went to the Zosima Hermitage to his spiritual father, Hieromonk Alexis, to ask whether he should remain confessor in a women's convent. The elder told him: "Stay in the convent; better to be among doves than among wolves." He helped him greatly in his grief. At the Trinity-⁠Sergius Lavra the elder opened the shrine and let him venerate the relics of Saint Sergius. The priest later told that he felt as if he were sinking his face into a blooming rose bush, and joy came into his soul. The elder told him he was happy, since few are given to experience this. From then on his life took on a monastic order of its own. His mother asked him not to become a monk while she lived, and he fulfilled her request, but he confined his life to the services, cell prayer, reading of the Holy Fathers, care for his flock and the teaching of children. He was a good preacher and prepared newly ordained priests who trained at Novodevichy. He taught his spiritual children to keep the faith in prison, in persecution, in hunger and cold, and under the executioner's sword.

Persecution On 26 September 1920 he was raised to archpriest. In the spring of 1922 he was arrested in the case against those who resisted the seizure of church valuables, and on 13 December 1922 the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced him to a year and a half; an amnesty freed him on 11 July 1923. Novodevichy Convent was closed and he served at the church of the Holy Trinity in Zubovo. On 14 April 1931 he was arrested again and imprisoned at Butyrka, accused because a photograph of him blessing parishioners in the courtyard of Novodevichy had appeared in the New York Times, with a caption calling him one of the priests who honestly do their duty. On 30 April he was sentenced to three years of exile in the Northern Territory, first at Veliky Ustyug, then in ever more remote villages. In a letter he called the move a walk with fasting and no rest. From exile he also wrote that the church services could be kept at home. After release in 1934 he returned to Moscow, was for a time secretary to Metropolitan Sergius, who appointed him to support him materially, and served at the church of Saints Peter and Paul in Malakhovka.

Martyrdom He was arrested on 21 January 1938. Taking leave, he bowed to the ground before his mother and told her that in this life they would not meet again. At his interrogation he rejected the charge of having received counter-⁠revolutionary assignments from Archpriest Vozdvizhensky and rejected the testimony of the priest Sergius Sakharov, who agreed to give the statements the investigators wanted. On 5 March 1938 the inquiry closed, and on 15 March an NKVD troika condemned him to death, together with the archpriests Sergius Tsvetkov and Alexis Smirnov and the priest Dimitri Glivenko. All were shot on 22 March 1938 and buried in an unknown common grave at Butovo.

He is commemorated on 22 March and, in the new style, on 29 May (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.