Sergius Sorokin

Holy Venerable Martyr Sergius Sorokin was a hieromonk, a disciple of Elder Philaret of Sreznevo, and he was shot on 23 December 1937.

Monastic life In the world Nicholas Ivanovich Sorokin, he was born in 1900 in the town of Skopin, Ryazan province, in the family of a tinsmith. His devout parents instilled in him and his three sisters the love of God, of the church and of prayer. In 1918, with his parents' blessing, he entered the Pronsk Monastery of the Transfiguration in Skopin, but after six months the monastery was closed and he was called into the Red Army, where he served three and a half years as a soldier. In 1922, after his military service, he went to Abkhazia, to the Monastery of Simon the Zealot at New Athos, where he received monastic tonsure in honour of Saint Sergius of Radonezh. When this monastery too was closed, in 1924, most of the monks settled in the valley of Pshu, near New Athos. In 1928 he returned to Ryazan province and was ordained hieromonk by Archbishop Juvenal (Maslovsky) of Ryazan and Shatsk.

He was sent to serve at the church of the Holy Trinity in the village of Zapolye, in place of Archpriest Basil Mrezhin, who had been repressed. The archbishop recommended that he seek counsel from Hegumen Philaret (Pryakhin), who bore the struggle of eldership in the neighbouring parish of Sreznevo at the Kazan church. Father Sergius had known Philaret from the Pronsk monastery and was glad. The parishioners grew fond of him for his sincerity and purity of heart. His free time he spent at Sreznevo. There a secret monastery had formed, a shelter for persecuted monks and nuns, an island of Orthodoxy in a boundless sea of atheism: daily services in the monastic order, unforgettable sermons. To every oppression Father Sergius answered with more prayer, more solemnity in the services, and processions through the village.

Martyrdom In 1931 Hegumen Philaret was arrested, and in the "case of the Philaretites" thirty-⁠eight more people, among them Hieromonk Sergius, who was sentenced to three years in a camp at Medvezhyegorsk in Karelia. At the end of 1934 he returned to Ryazan, and Archbishop Juvenal blessed him to serve in the village of Sreznevo, seeing in him a worthy successor to Hegumen Philaret. He served at the Kazan church with great zeal; people came from all around, the solemn services and processions were resumed, and he visited every family, comforted the sick and taught the strayed, gently and with Christian love. Nuns from the closed convents settled again near the Kazan church. In 1937 a new arrest followed, on a charge of counter-⁠revolutionary activity and of criticizing the policy of the party and government and the Soviet Constitution. On 23 December 1937 the venerable martyr Sergius was shot.

He is commemorated on 23 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 23 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of Ryazan.