Simon Shleev

Saint Simon (in the world Simeon Ivanovich Shleev, 1873-1921) the hieromartyr was bishop of Ufa and Sterlitamak in the Russian Orthodox Church and the first bishop of Edinoverie, that is, of the Old Rite communities in communion with the Orthodox Church. He wrote several works on Edinoverie, founded its first official journal and organized several brotherhoods and congresses. He was murdered at Ufa in 1921 and numbered among the saints by the Russian Church in 2000, with his memory on 5/18 August, the day of his martyrdom, and on the first Sunday after 25 January (7 February), in the synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

Youth and studies

He was born on 20 April 1873 in the village of Yavlei, Alatyr district, Simbirsk governorate, in the family of the Old Believer peasant Ivan Grigorievich Shleev. On 11 April 1876, at three, he was united to the Orthodox Church through Edinoverie, the movement in the Russian Church that keeps the old pre-⁠Nikonian rites. In all his activity he spoke for reconciliation with the Old Believers and for the official repeal of the anti-⁠Old-⁠Believer decisions of the Council of 1666-1667, which was done later by Metropolitan Sergius. In 1889 he graduated from the theological school at Lyskovo, in 1895 from the theological seminary of Nizhny Novgorod, as a first-⁠category student and second in his class, and in 1899 from the Kazan Theological Academy, with the degree of candidate of theology, for the work "Edinoverie, Its Essence and Organization".

Priest and missionary

On 17 January 1900 he was ordained priest by Bishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) of Chistopol and appointed rector of the Edinoverie church of the Four Evangelists in Kazan. He was a district missionary of Kazan and received the epigonation. In 1901 he published in Saint Petersburg his first book, "Edinoverie and Its Hundred-⁠Year Organized Existence in the Russian Church". From 1901 to 1904 he made missionary journeys in the diocese of Ufa. From 7 February 1905 he was a priest at the Edinoverie church of Saint Nicholas in Saint Petersburg and from 22 November 1907 its rector. In 1906 he took part in the work of the Pre-⁠Conciliar Commission and was dean of the Edinoverie churches of the capital. From 1906 to 1908 he edited in Saint Petersburg the weekly Edinoverie journal "The Truth of Orthodoxy", and his essay "Edinoverie in Its Inner Development" is the main source for the study of Edinoverie thought.

Thanks to his outstanding organizing activity, the church of Saint Nicholas became the largest educational centre of Edinoverie. At it, in 1908, the Brotherhood Real School was opened, whose director and catechist was Father Simeon: at first with only ten pupils, in 1912/1913 their number reached four hundred, and in October 1912 a new four-⁠storey building was put up. In 1913 a girls' gymnasium was opened at the church, whose board of trustees he led. In October 1909 he was the initiator of the participation of the Saint Petersburg Edinoverie delegation in the diocesan Edinoverie congress in Moscow. He organized and took part in the First All-⁠Russian Edinoverie Congress, held on 22-30 January 1912 in Saint Petersburg, where he was elected honorary secretary. On 31 January, in the congress delegation, he was received by Emperor Nicholas II and presented the Tsarevich Alexei with a prayer rug embroidered in silk on pale pink satin. From 1914 to 1917 he was chairman of the board of trustees for soldiers and their families, and on 13 December 1916 he received the Order of Saint Anne second class, the citation noting that he had raised up to 40,000 roubles, took part in organizing a Red Cross hospital of 40 beds for the wounded, held literary evenings and talked with the wounded. In 1916 he was raised to archpriest; in the same year his wife, Ekaterina Fyodorovna, died.

Bishop

From May to August 1917 he was a member of the Pre-⁠Conciliar Council, and on 10 July 1917 he was elected delegate of the Edinoverie to the Local Council. He organized and was vice-⁠chairman of the Second Edinoverie Congress, held on 23-28 July 1917 at Nizhny Novgorod. He was a member of the Local Council of 1917-1918 and, in the name of the Edinoverie, warmly supported the restoration of the patriarchate in the Russian Church. The Council decided to establish Edinoverie vicariates. In May 1918 he was tonsured a rassophore, and in June a monk, with elevation to archimandrite. On 16 June 1918, in the Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, he was consecrated Edinoverie bishop of Okhta, subordinate to the Metropolitan of Petrograd, by Patriarch Tikhon with Metropolitan Benjamin (of Kazan) and other bishops, according to the old printed books.

In 1920 Patriarch Tikhon appointed him temporary administrator of the diocese of Ufa, when Archbishop Andrei (Ukhtomsky) could not be with his flock. Bishop Simon arrived at Ufa at the beginning of May 1920 and administered the diocese until the day of his martyrdom, 18 August 1921. He had received a diocese over which the civil war had passed in several waves. In the retreat of Admiral Kolchak's army, dozens of clergy had left the diocese with Bishop Andrei's permission, and the long absence of a bishop had caused church life to die in many parishes. So one of his first cares was to set up in all parishes a regular life of services. The faithful testify that he was approachable, warm, free of love of money and able to speak in language everyone could understand. Though devoted to the old rite, in ordinary Orthodox churches he served by the new order, according to the decision of the Council of 1917-1918.

Death and veneration

On 18 August 1921 he was killed with two revolver shots on the way home from the Resurrection cathedral service. The crime was of an ordinary criminal character, committed by robbers. After his death he was venerated especially by the faithful of the diocese of Ufa. He was buried in the Resurrection cathedral in Ufa, and in 1932 he was moved to the Sergievsky cemetery of the city.

His name was entered in the draft list of the Russian New Martyrs and Confessors made for the canonization carried out by the Russian Church Outside Russia in 1981, though that canonization was not by name. In 1991 an Edinoverie brotherhood in his memory was formed in Moscow, but it ceased after a few years. On 18 July 1999 the Holy Synod passed to the next Council the proposal of Bishop Nikon (Vasyukov) of Ufa for his canonization. On 6 (19) August 2000, seventy-⁠nine years after his martyrdom, on the feast of the Transfiguration, the Jubilee Council of Bishops glorified the first Edinoverie bishop in the synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. On 30 August 2021, at the spiritual centre beside the church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Alatyr, an international conference, "With One Faith and One Spirit", marking the hundredth anniversary of his death, was held.