Theodore Zakharov

Holy Martyr Theodore Zakharov (1874 to 1937) was a Cossack of the Orenburg province. He was born on 13 April 1874 in the settlement of Uglitsky in the Chelyabinsk district, in a hereditary Cossack family. He received the crown of martyrdom by shooting on 27 August 1937, at Chimkent. He was numbered among the saints by the Council of Bishops of the year 2000.

In 1919 he was arrested by White officers, but released after a day. Until 1920 he lived in Vladivostok. In 1920, in the town of Verkhneudinsk, he was arrested for having passed through the White zone from Vladivostok, but was released after thirty-⁠two days. In 1937 he was arrested for the last time, in the group case "Archbishop Alexis (Orlov) and others, town of Chimkent, 1937." The case file contains a note: Zakharov F. D., leading a wandering life, comes to various places in Kazakhstan and conducts among the population slanderous agitation against the leaders of the party and the Soviet government, and is a direct executor of the counter-⁠revolutionary activity of the Metropolitan of Tashkent and the local bishops.

On 23 August 1937, in case no. 723, against Metropolitan Cyril (Smirnov), Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh), Archbishop Alexis (Orlov) and others, an indictment was drawn up in which it was said, among other things, "Zakharov Fyodor, liaison between the centre and the counter-⁠revolutionary cells in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Conducted counter-⁠revolutionary agitation among the population. Engaged in teaching the Law of God." At the interrogation Theodore Dmitrievich declared that he had belonged to no counter-⁠revolutionary organization and had done no counter-⁠revolutionary work. In August 1937 the troika of the UNKVD for the South Kazakhstan region sentenced him to the supreme penalty. He was shot on 27 August 1937 at Lisya Balka near Chimkent, in the South Kazakhstan region.

He is commemorated on 27 August (new style) and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church on 7 February, on a movable day.