Simeon Vorobyov

Holy Martyr Simeon Vorobyov was a peasant of the village of Klyuchevoe in Tver province, and he was shot on 17 August 1937, together with his brother Dimitri, for their love of the church. He was canonized in the year 2000.

The brothers Simeon and Dimitri were born in the village of Klyuchevoe, Maksatikha district, in a pious peasant family, that of Michael Vorobyov: Semyon in 1871, Dimitri in 1873, so that in 1937 they were over sixty. They were not learned, but they could read and were well read in church literature, trained from childhood in prayer and the services. Both served as privates: Simeon from 1903 to 1907, Dimitri in 1914-1915. Before the revolution they had small farms: Simeon a horse, a cow and a sheep, Dimitri two cows, two sheep and a windmill. At the time of the revolution these were not taken, but at the beginning of the thirties they were arrested, their property confiscated and they were exiled with their families to the Urals. Simeon had two sons, Nicholas, eleven, and Michael, five, and Dimitri two daughters, fourteen and thirteen, and a son of eleven. After a year they were allowed to return, but nothing of their property was given back. Simeon had been church warden of the church of Klyuchevoe before the exile, and the priest Alexander Dievsky, who came to the village, proposed that he work as watchman at the church and taught his son Nicholas to sing and read at the choir, so that he soon became psalm-⁠reader. Dimitri made a small farm so as not to starve in his native village. What was precious in the brothers was faith and great love for the church; therefore Father Alexander lodged with them, and these pious families were the support of the parish.

On 23 July 1937 Dimitri, Simeon and his son Nicholas were arrested and imprisoned at Bezhetsk. At his interrogation Simeon explained that he had met Dievsky in 1930, when he came and lodged with him, that he himself was watchman, his son psalm-⁠reader, and he denied any counter-⁠revolutionary activity; his son Nicholas, who had barely turned seventeen, denied it too, and Dimitri said that his tie with Dievsky, his brother and his nephew consisted in going to church. On 13 August an NKVD troika sentenced Simeon and Dimitri to death, and Nicholas, being seventeen, to eight years in a camp. The brothers Simeon and Dimitri were shot on 17 August 1937. They were numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors at the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000.

Simeon is commemorated on 17 August 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 18 July (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tver.