Sergius Makhaev

Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Makhaev was an archpriest in Moscow, a teacher of the Law of God and spiritual father of the Red Cross sisters of mercy, and he was shot at Butovo on 2 December 1937.

Beginnings He was born on 6 September 1874 in the family of the priest Constantine Georgievich Makhaev of the church of the Saviour in the village of Usovo, Moscow district, where the estate of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich lay. In 1895 he graduated from the Bethany Seminary in the first category and became psalm-⁠reader at the church of Saint Nicholas in Kosheli in Moscow. He taught in parish schools and married Lyudmila Sergeevna Tsvetkova, daughter of a Moscow priest; they had no children. In 1900 a church of the Iveron icon of the Mother of God was built for the Iveron community of Red Cross sisters of mercy, patronized by Grand Duke Sergei and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, and Bishop Parthenius (Levitsky) of Mozhaisk ordained him deacon on 15 October 1900 and priest on 17 October. He served there for nineteen years.

Ministry He taught the Law of God in several Moscow schools, was a member of the Moscow commission of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, and from 1905, at the request of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, taught the future sisters of the community. He sought to raise them spiritually, to prepare them for serving the suffering, and to show them that the commandments of love for God and neighbour can be fulfilled in daily work. He received the kamilavka in 1915, for fifteen years of voluntary labour for the Palestine Society, and the golden pectoral cross in 1917. After 1917 he remained at the Iveron church; from 24 June 1919 he was rector of the church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul on Bolshaya Yakimanka. On 26 March 1920 Metropolitan Eusebius of Krutitsy raised him to archpriest, and in 1922 he received a golden cross with ornaments, given by his parishioners.

Trials and martyrdom In 1922 he was arrested on suspicion of teaching children the Law of God and held for two weeks. In the time of Renovationist turmoil he at first recognized the Renovationist Supreme Church Administration, but when he understood the truth he withdrew from them and took an uncompromising position. In February 1924, as head of the Orthodox community, he organized resistance to the community of the "Union of Church Revival", which had taken possession of the church of Saints Peter and Paul; after its complaint about "Makhaevism", the church was taken from him. In 1924 he was arrested and held three months. From 1925 he served as second priest at the church of Saint Maron in Stary Pany until its closure in 1930. In 1937 he was named rector of the Epiphany cathedral of Noginsk.

In August 1937, when all members of the cathedral's church council were arrested, he organized a new group of twenty to avoid the closing of the church; some withdrew in the wave of arrests, and this became a pretext for accusation. On 22 November 1937 he was arrested on a charge of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation and imprisoned at Noginsk. Questioned the same day, he rejected the charges of counter-⁠revolutionary activity, of drawing believers in by deceit and of terrorist intentions against communists. On 25 November an NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and on 2 December 1937 he was shot and buried in an unknown common grave at Butovo.

He is commemorated on 2 December 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.