Sophia Seliverstova

Saint Sophia Seliverstova, venerable martyr, was a novice of Russia, born in 1871 into a peasant family of the Saratov governorate, and shot at the Butovo firing range on 28 February 1938. She is commemorated on 15 February by the old calendar, which is 28 February by the new, and in the Synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia.

She was born on 17 September 1871 in the village of Iznair, Serdobsk district. She was orphaned at ten and was raised in an orphanage in the village of Krayushkino. The community attached to the orphanage had been founded by a monastery. She lived there until the age of twenty. In 1891 she came to Saint Petersburg, worked as a servant and studied drawing.

In 1898 she met a nun of the Strastnoy monastery in Moscow, who recommended her to the abbess. Sophia moved to Moscow and became a novice at Strastnoy. In 1926 the monastery was closed, and in 1927 Sophia settled with five of its nuns in a basement on Tikhvinskaya street. In November 1937 the nuns were arrested, but Sophia, who was not at home at the time, escaped arrest.

She was arrested on 22 February 1938 on the charge of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation. She did not admit guilt. The troika attached to the NKVD Directorate for the Moscow region sentenced her to death. The sentence was carried out on 28 February 1938, at the Butovo firing range.

She was canonized for veneration throughout the Church by decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 22 February 2001, on the proposal of the Moscow diocese.