Theogenes Kozyrev

Holy Hieromartyr Theogenes (in the world Vasily Lvovich Kozyrev) was an archimandrite of the Russian Church. He was born on 27 January 1862 in Saint Petersburg and died on 12 July 1939 in the Komi ASSR. He was numbered among the saints by the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Church in August 2000.

He was born into the family of Lev Kozyrev, an employee of the stables department at the tsar's palace. He graduated, at state expense, from the Alexander Gymnasium in 1883. He was married and was left a widower, and his son, Nikolai, emigrated abroad after the Bolsheviks came to power. After the Bolsheviks came to power, when the stables department was handed over to a motor depot, he worked there as storekeeper until 1924. After retiring, Vasily Lvovich settled at the Saint George Monastery in Meshchovsk, in Kaluga province, where in 1924 he was tonsured a monk, in honour of the holy hieromartyr Theogenes, bishop of Parium.

In 1926 he was ordained hieromonk by Bishop German (Weinberg) of Mosalsk and continued to serve at Mosalsk, being the bishop's confessor. In 1928 he moved with Bishop German to Buguruslan, where the latter had been appointed vicar, and in 1930, when Bishop German received an independent see, he moved with him to Alma-⁠Ata, where he served at the church of Saint Nicholas in Kuchugur. In 1932 he was raised to the rank of archimandrite.

In 1932 he was arrested with the bishop and all the clergy of the church. He was accused of taking part in a counter-⁠revolutionary organization of churchmen. On 25 June 1933 the three-⁠man tribunal at the political police plenipotentiary representation in Kazakhstan sentenced him to three years of exile in West Siberia, and from 1933 to 1935 he was exiled in the town of Tara, Omsk region. In December 1935 he returned to Alma-⁠Ata, where he again served at the church of Saint Nicholas in Kuchugur, but in March of the following year he was arrested again and sent into exile at Chimkent.

On 1 December 1936 he was arrested at Chimkent, on a charge of anti-⁠Soviet and counter-⁠revolutionary activity under the guise of religion. He was sentenced to five years of exile in the Northern region. He was held in places of confinement in the Komi ASSR, where he also died.