Theodore Grudakov

Holy Hieromartyr Theodore Grudakov, a priest, was born on 13 February 1889 in the village of Pesye in the Podolsk district of the Moscow province, in the family of the peasant Vasily Grudakov. He died in a camp, on 27 November 1940.

Life

Finishing the Perervinsky clerical school in 1905, he entered the Moscow seminary. In 1911, after the seminary, he was ordained priest for the Tikhvin church in Bogorodskoe-⁠Vatutinki, Podolsk district. In 1919 an uprising against Bolshevik power began in the Podolsk district, and part of the population formed an armed detachment led by a man named Zeleny. Father Theodore was called for some months into the rear militia of the Red Army, but from June 1919 he continued his service in the Tikhvin church.

First arrest

On 15 August 1930 he was arrested by the OGPU on charges of anti-⁠Soviet activity and held in the Butyrka prison. One witness, the priest Sergius Gorsky, said that Father Theodore had written him a letter in December 1929 saying, "I will not console or calm you, for I too am in an uncertain situation, but I feel calm. Think: by getting agitated, can we improve our situation? We are outside the law. There are many rumours, but it is risky to trust them. I was summoned to the OGPU, they grilled me for about two hours, apparently they wished to accuse me, but did not succeed. If militant atheism has declared war on the Church, a decree allows us to organize communities; if they take the church, we will serve in homes. Do not be discouraged, let us believe that God does not send trials beyond our strength, and we shall have to die some time." Another witness, the priest Vladimir Belyaev, out of fear, accused Father Theodore of having said anti-⁠Soviet words. At the interrogation, Father Theodore, knowing that any word about another could harm that person, answered all the questions with restraint. Asked about the ban on teaching the Law of God in schools, he said that the decree had disconcerted him, that he could not reconcile himself to it psychologically and considered it violence against human conscience, and that at a meeting he had proposed sending an appeal to the Local Council in the name of the faithful.

The inquiry ended at the beginning of September 1930. On 5 September 1930 the OGPU troika sentenced him to five years in a labour camp. He served the sentence on the construction of the White Sea Canal and then of the Sorbsk port. In April 1934 he was released. He served first in the Ryazan diocese, and in April 1937 he received an appointment to the church of the Holy Unmercenary Martyrs Cosmas and Damian in the village of Staraya Kashira, Kashira district, Moscow region.

Second arrest

In 1937 the chairman of the collective farm in Staraya Kashira sent a request to the NKVD that the priest be arrested urgently, on the ground that he had disrupted an important event: on the evening of 3 December the farm was to be assembled for a talk on the elections to the Supreme Soviet, and Father Theodore had gathered Vespers in church, on the feast of the Entry of the Mother of God into the Temple. He was arrested on 4 December 1937 and questioned the same day. Witnesses said that the priest urged people to go to church and that his authority was very great, although he had served in the village for a short time. He denied all charges. The same day he was moved to Taganka in Moscow, and on 7 December 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years in a labour camp. On 27 December 1937 he arrived in Samarlag, where he died of overwork and hunger on 27 November 1940 and was buried in an unknown common grave.

He is commemorated on 27 November (new style), in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church on 7 February and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow on 5 September, the last two being movable.