Tatiana

Holy Venerable Martyr Tatiana, a nun, was born on 10 January 1866 in Moscow. At the age of five her mother placed her in the orphanage of the Nativity Convent, where she lived until the convent was closed in 1923, never leaving its walls during all that time. She took on various obediences and finished the parish school within the convent. In 1920 she was tonsured a nun.

After the convent was closed she lived in an apartment close to it until her arrest, continuing her monastic labour and earning her living by handwork and sewing.

She was arrested on 29 September 1937, together with Archbishop Dimitry (Dobroserdov), Archimandrite Ambrose (Astakhov), Hegumen Pachomius (Turkevich), Deacon John Khrenov, the monk Barlaam (Efimov) and the laypeople Nicholas Rein, Maria Volnukhina and Nadezhda Azhgerevich. At the investigation she did not admit guilt. On 17 October 1937 an NKVD troika condemned the arrested to death, except the monk Barlaam, who was sent to ten years in a camp. On 21 October the other eight, among them the nun Tatiana, were shot at the Butovo firing range near Moscow and buried in a common, unmarked grave.

Saint Tatiana is commemorated on 21 October, on 29 May (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, all in the new style.