Sergius Zaitsev

Holy Venerable Martyr Sergius Zaitsev was archimandrite and abbot of the Dormition Monastery of Zilant near Kazan, and he was shot with his brethren on 10 September 1918, new style.

His monastic path He was born in 1863 in Gatchina, in the family of an official, and was baptized John. He graduated from the Imperial Nicholas Institute in Gatchina and, desiring a retired life, entered the Nilov Hermitage in the Tver diocese as a novice in September 1891, as assistant teacher in the parish school. On 25 September 1893 he was tonsured a monk with the name Sergius, in June 1894 ordained hierodeacon, and on 24 May 1896 hieromonk. Bishop Demetrius (Sambikin) of Tver, a scholar and spiritual writer, noticed him and in 1900 named him treasurer of the Borisoglebsk Monastery at Torzhok, then steward of the Bishop's House. When the bishop was transferred to Kazan in 1905, Father Sergius followed him and was raised to hegumen on 11 May 1905, at forty-⁠two, and steward. Desiring quiet, he was appointed on 1 September 1906 abbot of the Makaryev Hermitage at Sviyazhsk, a small and remote place, where he worked with joy. In January 1908 he was also made dean of the monasteries of the second district. After Archbishop Demetrius fell asleep, on 17 March 1908, the new archbishop Nicanor raised him to archimandrite on 28 May 1908 and in January 1909 moved him as abbot to the old Dormition Monastery of Zilant near Kazan.

As abbot The monastery's household was in disorder, and the abbot began works of building and restoration and brought brethren from Makaryev and from the Archangel Michael monastery of the Cheremis. Among those who came was the monk Leontius (Lawrence Karyagin, born 1870), a peasant of Kazan, formerly a novice at Raifa, tonsured on 20 December 1909. In 1917-1918 things worsened: the lands were taken, many novices were called into the army, and the number of novices fell from fifteen to four, that of monks from twelve to seven. In July 1918 he asked the Diocesan Council to move to Zilant the hieromonk Seraphim, a Chuvash of the Archangel Michael monastery, who wished to leave because of the strife between Cheremis and Chuvash, and the council agreed, though Metropolitan Jacob noted that the monastery was occupied by the army and that no new transfers could be spoken of. By the middle of 1918 the brotherhood numbered eleven: Archimandrite Sergius, the hieromonks Lawrence, Joseph and Seraphim, the hierodeacon Theodosius, the monks Leontius and Stephen, and the novices George Timofeev, Sergius Galin, John Sretensky and Hilarion Pravdin.

Martyrdom In August 1918, when Kazan was taken by the White Czechs, two guns were set on the Zilant height, right before the monastery entrance, firing at the gunboats on the Volga. On 11 August the abbot asked the Diocesan Council to house the brethren temporarily in the monasteries of the city, leaving at Zilant, as guards, the hieromonk Joseph, the monk Stephen and the novice Hilarion. In the night toward 10 September, new style, the White Czechs left Kazan, and with them about sixty thousand townspeople, among them many clergy; the monks lodged in the city had returned to the monastery the day before. In the morning Red Army soldiers burst into the suburb. A young officer of the mounted guard, Michael Mikhailovich Dogel, fired last from the machine gun and fell. Enraged, the soldiers entered the monastery and, unable to vent their anger on the Czechs, resolved to take vengeance on the defenceless monks, within whose walls the guns had stood. The brethren had gathered in the refectory after the last Liturgy of their lives; that day the memory of Saint Moses the Ethiopian was kept, whose life was read at the meal, and the saint had been killed by barbarians with six disciples. After more than fifteen hundred years other barbarians drove the monks from the refectory, lined them against the wall of the courtyard and shot them all in volleys, with Archimandrite Sergius at their head.

The aged hieromonk Joseph, who fell senseless at the first shots, climbed out from under the heap of bodies and went into the city, finding shelter at the Monastery of Saint John the Forerunner with Hegumen Ephraim. As the metropolitan and the bishops had left, the diocese was led by the thirty-⁠two-⁠year-⁠old Archimandrite Joasaph (Udalov), who, learning of it from the elder, performed the burial service for Archimandrite Sergius and his brethren himself, so as not to expose others. Father Joseph died a year later, having told many times of the martyrdom of his brethren; he had become almost deaf and said that it seemed to him that a part of the brain of the brother who fell upon him had remained in his ear. He often served the Liturgy and taught the faithful to commemorate "the slain Archimandrite Sergius and the brethren of Zilant", and God did not give him the martyr's crown so that he might tell the Church of the martyrs of Zilant.

He is commemorated on 10 September, on 17 October in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kazan and, in the new style, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors and on 18 July (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tver.