Theodore Kallistov

Holy Hieromartyr Theodore Kallistov, an archpriest, was born on 17 April 1865 in the village of Ust-⁠Kera (Arshinovka) in the Penza province, in the family of the deacon Stephen Kallistov. He received the crown of martyrdom on 3 September 1937.

His forefathers in the male line, back to the time of Peter the Great (about 1722), had been church servants. In 1880 he finished the clerical school, and in 1886 the Penza seminary. He was assigned as psalm-⁠reader to his native village. In 1887, after his marriage, he was ordained deacon, then priest. From 1887 to 1916 he served in various villages of the Penza province and was also a teacher of religion in parish and zemstvo schools. Fourteen children were born in the family. In 1916 he was moved to the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in the town of Troitsk, and in 1922, as rector, he was raised to the rank of archpriest.

The last years of his life were filled with troubles and want. In the 1930s the authorities did all they could to close the church in Troitsk. On 28 February 1930 the archpriest was detained by the OGPU and accused of anti-⁠Soviet and anti-⁠collective-⁠farm agitation, but did not admit guilt. The parishioners drew up a petition asking that he be released on their surety, but on 3 October 1930 he was sentenced to three years of exile in Western Siberia, and the church was closed. In 1933, after the three years, he returned to Troitsk, reopened the church and resumed the services. False denunciations to the militia and the NKVD began again. In 1935 the church was closed again, on the pretext of non-⁠payment of the tax on the building, but the archpriest managed to reopen it. To prevent a new closure he gathered part of the sum required by the state, but on the basis of a new denunciation, on 14 August 1937, he was arrested. At the investigation he conducted himself bravely, accused no one, named no names and did not admit the charges.

On 22 and 23 August 1937 the session of the NKVD troika took place. The extract from the record says that the archpriest was accused of active anti-⁠Soviet terrorist agitation and of calling the population to struggle against Soviet power, and the decision was that he be shot. On 3 September 1937 Archpriest Theodore Kallistov received a martyr's end.

He is commemorated on 3 September (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 the Penza Metropolis on 12 June, these two being movable.