Theodore Nedosekin

Holy Hieromartyr Theodore Nedosekin was a Russian priest, born on 28 October 1889 in the village of Novoselki in Smolensk province and died on 30 April 1942 in the Onega camp, in the Arkhangelsk region. The Russian Church numbered him among the saints in August 2000, as a holy hieromartyr. He is commemorated on 17 April by the old calendar (30 April by the new) and in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Arkhangelsk Metropolis.

He was born into the family of Deacon George Petrovich Nedosekin and Theodosia Petrovna. For many years he worked as a teacher, then as school inspector of the district. After the revolution he became director of the school in his native village. In 1913 he had married Zinaida, the daughter of Protodeacon John Mukhin, and eight children were born to them, five boys and three girls. In 1921 he was ordained deacon, and in 1922 Bishop Theophan (Berezkin) of Gzhatsk ordained him priest and appointed him rector of the church of the Presentation of the Mother of God in the village of Semyonovskoe, in the Gzhatsk district.

At the end of the 1920s, for non-⁠payment of a tax, Father Nedosekin was arrested and the family's property, including their house, was taken away. In 1930 he was sentenced to one year in a labour camp. His family followed him to Kama camp no. 2. Soon Father Theodore was acquitted by the court and the family returned to Semyonovskoe, but their house was already occupied and the church closed.

He moved to the Donbas and worked with his eldest son in a coal mine. In 1932 he went to Moscow and was received at the Patriarchate, to ask for an appointment to a church in the Moscow diocese. He was sent to serve at the church of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God in the village of Ivanisovo in the Moscow region, where he moved again with his family. At the new place of service he won the love and respect of the parishioners.

On 26 October 1937 he was arrested by NKVD officers. On 15 November 1937 the NKVD troika found him guilty of "counter-⁠revolutionary and anti-⁠Soviet activity" and sentenced him to ten years in a labour camp. He served his sentence in a camp near the station of Medvezhya Gora and worked on the building of the White Sea Canal. In the camp, while working at logging, he broke his leg and was moved to the cooper's workshop, then to the Onega camp. With the start of the war, the supply to prisoners became scarcer. He died on 30 April 1942 and was buried in an unknown grave.

In August 2000 the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church, on the proposal of the Moscow diocese, numbered him among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. His commemoration was set for 17 April (30 April).