Theodore Bobkov

Saint Theodore Bobkov (in monastic life Theodosius, 1874-1938), hieromartyr, was a hieromonk and village priest, formerly a singer and choir director at the Chudov Monastery in the Kremlin, shot at the Butovo firing range on 17 February 1938. He was glorified in 2000 among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

Youth

He was born on 7 February 1874 in the village of Novaya in the Kashira district of Tula province, into a peasant family. From a young age he showed an unusual gift for singing, and his parents sent him to the city school in Moscow, where he studied in Bykov's church choir. At eighteen he chose the monastic path and entered the Chudov Monastery in Moscow as a novice, where his main obedience was church singing, and he was then officially appointed choir director of the monastery. He was tonsured into the mantle with the name Theodosius. On 14 December 1907 he was ordained hierodeacon and on 14 January 1911 hieromonk.

Military priest and the years after the revolution

In the First World War he was sent to the active army as a regimental priest. In July 1915 he arrived at the front and was assigned to reserve field hospital no. 211, and in March 1916 to the 161st Alexandropol infantry regiment. His service record shows that he was under artillery fire and that he walked round the regiment's positions with the cross and holy water under enemy fire. For bravery he received the Order of Saint Anna, third class, and the Holy Synod sent him a blessing and a certificate in 1916. He served the wounded and the medical staff, prepared the dying for their last journey and buried fallen soldiers. He was recalled to Chudov in July 1917.

After the Bolsheviks came to power the Chudov Monastery, being in the Kremlin, was among the first closed. Father Theodore served from 1920 at Odintsovo, in 1923 was choir director at the Novospassky Monastery, then priest in the village of Zaraza. From 1930 he was rector of the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the village of Vikhorna, where he received a pectoral cross.

Arrest and martyrdom

In 1938, at the height of the persecution, the local NKVD took notice of him and decided to fabricate a case. On 20 January the investigator questioned only two witnesses, collective farmers from Matveikovo, who testified against him, accusing him of agitation against the order and the collective farms. On 29 January he was arrested and taken to the prison at Kashira. He was interrogated the next day and was said to have declared that a good life is given by God and not by Soviet power, that people should go to church and not listen to the Communists, whom he supposedly called antichrists, and that the more Soviet power attacked religion, the more the people would believe in God. The priest denied every word and did not admit guilt.

On 8 February the troika examined the case of Hieromonk Theodosius and sentenced him to death. He was shot on 17 February 1938 at Butovo and buried in an unknown grave. He was glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church at the Jubilee Council in 2000.