Sergius Lyubomudrov

Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Lyubomudrov was a priest in the village of Sushkovo in Ryazan province and was shot at Butovo on 21 February 1938, in part because he had buried the retired bishop of the village.

He was born on 4 July 1878 in the village of Myshtsy, Kasimov district, in the family of the priest John Lyubomudrov. In 1899, after three classes of seminary at Ryazan, he became psalm-⁠reader at the cathedral of Pronsk. In 1906 he was ordained deacon at the church of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God in Sushkovo, Lukhovitsy district, and in 1916 priest at the same church, where he served until his arrest. He served for the last time on 3 February 1938, and was arrested on 6 February and imprisoned at Kolomna.

At the request of the NKVD the chairman of the village council gave a certificate that the priest conducted counter-⁠revolutionary agitation by saying that the communists were closing the churches and by telling believing collective farmers to ask the council for permission to go from house to house with molebens. He was also accused of having invited other priests and the people to the burial when the retired bishop Theodosius (Ganitsky) died in the village. At the interrogation he explained that the bishop was about eighty, had served earlier at Kolomna and after exile had settled at Sushkovo, that he had died in early May and that he, as parish priest, had buried him, without notifying anyone; at the service and the funeral there were about a hundred and fifty people, and five of the clergy. As for the grave, he said he had served about fifty memorial services there, but had not spread rumours that the bishop was a saint. On going from house to house, he told how in 1936 he had himself asked permission at the council, then at another council and of the prosecutor, had received a refusal everywhere and had not gone, and when the church warden asked him again in 1937, he had said he would go only if the council allowed it. Asked whether he served from conviction or for gain and whether he knew that religion is opium for the people, he answered that he served from conviction and did not consider religion an opium. He admitted no guilt on any charge.

The inquiry ended on 8 February, on 16 February 1938 an NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and on 21 February he was shot and buried in an unknown common grave at Butovo.

He is commemorated on 21 February and, in the new style, on 29 May (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, 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.