Simeon of Kostroma

Holy Venerable Martyr Simeon of Kostroma was a monk of the Epiphany Monastery in Kostroma and died as a martyr on 30 December 1608 (old style), when the monastery was taken by the Tushino troops, together with his brethren.

Since the seventeenth century Kostroma has been counted a symbol of victory over the Time of Troubles. The Epiphany Monastery had been founded in the 1420s by Saint Nikita of Kostroma, a disciple and kinsman of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, on the edge of the town. In the autumn of 1608 the troops of the supporters of the second False Dimitri, called the "Thief of Tushino", won battles, and many towns swore allegiance, hoping to be spared devastation. An embassy of Kostroma, with Archimandrite Theodosius of the Hypatian Monastery and Hegumen Arsenius of the Epiphany, went to Tushino as well. Soon, though, the abuses of the invaders stirred a popular uprising, and Kostroma overthrew its new rulers. To suppress it the Tushino leaders sent punitive detachments, under Colonel Lisovsky, with two thousand Cossacks and 608 mercenaries. The citizens' militia, poorly organized, could not stand against them. On 28 December 1608 (old style) the invaders took Kostroma, but met resistance from the monks of the Epiphany. On 30 December (old style) the monastery was taken by force and plundered, and its defenders died as martyrs.

The Kostroma church historian I. V. Bazhenov wrote that the monks, loyal to Tsar Shuisky, shut themselves in the monastery and chose rather to lose their treasures and even their lives than betray their oath; "martyrs of fidelity", they all perished after the monastery was taken. The monastery's synodikon, from the end of the sixteenth and the early seventeenth century, lists among the slain the hieromonks Triphyllius, Macarius and Sabbatius, the hierodeacon Athenogenes, the monks Barlaam, Dionysius, Job, Herodion, Simeon, Cyril, Maxim, Joasaph and Gurias, then servants and maidservants and thirty-⁠four peasants of the monastery. Their memory was kept every year, on 30 December, with a memorial service and Liturgy. The revival of the monastery began in 1990, and on 5 March 2004 Patriarch Alexy II confirmed the list of the Synaxis of the Saints of Kostroma, in which the defenders of the Epiphany Monastery are included. Since then they have been honoured as local saints.

Simeon is commemorated on 5 February, in the new style, in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Kostroma Metropolis.