Sergius Orlov

Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Orlov was a priest in the Moscow region and then in the Kaluga region and was shot on 21 December 1937.

He was born in 1888 in the village of Kuvyakino, Podolsk district, in the family of a priest of Podushkino. His mother, Elizabeth Bogoslovskaya, came from a family of priests. At twenty-⁠five he married Elizabeth, daughter of the parish priest of Rubtsovo, Gabriel Bogolyubsky, and they had six children: Gabriel, Alexander, Nadezhda, the twins Valentina and Nicholas, and Tatiana. After his father-⁠in-⁠law's death he was appointed priest in his place. The family lived on the second floor of a house beside which was an orchard with an apiary. People came to Father Sergius for apples, honey, iodine, valerian and all sorts of small things, and no one was ever refused. He was very kind, loved people without limit, and they loved him.

In 1932 he was called to the OGPU and told to become an agent, to watch certain persons and report. He refused outright despite threats. Some time later he was arrested at night after a search, and came back after nine months, swollen from hunger and cold. His wife cooked millet soup and fed him in small portions, fearing for his health. The church was not closed and he went on serving. Soon he was called again to the OGPU and again asked to be an informer, and again refused. Then his family was driven out of their house, where a machine and tractor station was set up, and the six children were lodged in the church watchman's room. He was told that he must leave with his family or he would go back to where he had been. He went to the Kaluga region, to the village of Lychevo, where he served as priest.

After two years the church in that village was closed and everyone was driven out. He moved with his family to the village of Raevskoe in the same region. After a year and a half they came by night, turned the house upside down, took the priest and drove out the others. His wife, Elizabeth, was sheltered by Matrona Zhornova in the village of Semyonovka. Elizabeth died of a stroke in 1942, and Father Sergius had been shot on 21 December 1937.

He is commemorated on 21 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 and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.