Sergius Rokhletsov

Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Rokhletsov was an archpriest near Veliky Ustyug, spiritual father of the ascetic Maxim Yugov, and he died in prison on 8 May 1938.

He was born in 1876 in the family of the priest Dimitri Rokhletsov, who served in a church of Veliky Ustyug. After seminary he was ordained priest for the church of the Holy Great Martyr Paraskeva Friday, at which he served all his life. Before the revolution he taught the Law of God at the parish school of the village of Chizhkovo. The church stood thirty kilometres from Veliky Ustyug, not far from the hermit's cell of the ascetic Maxim Yugov. For his spiritual zeal the elder Maxim chose Father Sergius as his confessor, confessed to him and entrusted him with his funeral service. The priest honoured the elder and blessed his parishioners to seek his counsel.

The church stood far from dwellings, in the middle of a field, and the parish was made up of a few sparsely populated villages; sometimes many believers came, sometimes none, but he served almost daily, helped by a psalm-⁠reader and an altar woman. For long and blameless service he was raised to archpriest and awarded the mitre.

He was arrested on 4 December 1937 and imprisoned at Veliky Ustyug. Questioned, he said that he did not admit guilt of counter-⁠revolutionary activity. On 10 December an NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years in a camp. He died in the prison at Veliky Ustyug on 8 May 1938 and was buried in a common grave in the town cemetery.

He is commemorated on 8 May 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 11 July (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda.