Theodore Dorofeev

Holy Hieromartyr Theodore Dorofeev, a priest, was born on 7 June 1885 in the village of Kozlakovo in the Alexandrov district of the Vladimir province, in the family of the peasant Efimy Dorofeev. He received the crown of martyrdom by shooting on 10 December 1937, at the Butovo firing range near Moscow.

He finished the Vladimir seminary. In 1906 he married Alexandra Narbekova, whose parents were peasants of the same village. He was ordained deacon and served in the village of Vypuklovo, then as priest in the church of the Meeting of the Lord in the village of Konstantinovo in the Moscow province. In time of persecution, in 1931, the church was closed, and the priest and parishioners began to work for its reopening, while he served in the parishioners' homes. In December 1932 the priest and the most active members of the parish council were arrested on charges of organizing a counter-⁠revolutionary group of church people that supposedly aimed to frustrate the measures of Soviet power and break up the collective farms. On 21 January 1933 the OGPU troika sentenced him to five years in a labour camp.

After his return he served at the church of Saint Sergius of Radonezh in the village of Zyatkovo in the Taldom district, built in memory of the Russian victory in the war of 1812. In the autumn of 1937 false witnesses were questioned, who said that Father Theodore had complained that parishioners ordered fewer and fewer prayer services and memorial services, that priests were left without means of living, and that he urged the faithful to support the church. On 31 October 1937 he was arrested and held in Taganka prison. At the interrogation the investigator told him that he had conducted anti-⁠Soviet activity and that in April 1937 he had propagandized among children to hinder preparations for 1 May and had called the people to church. He answered that he did not admit guilt. On 5 December 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and Father Theodore Dorofeev was shot on 10 December 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave.

He is commemorated on 10 December (new style), in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo on 29 May, and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow on 5 September, these two being movable, and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Radonezh.