Theophanes Grafov

Holy Venerable Martyr Theophanes Grafov, a hierodeacon, was born on 6 January 1874 in the settlement of Nikitskaya in the Pereslavl district of the Vladimir province, in the family of the peasant Feodor Grafov, and at baptism he was named Theodosius. He died in a camp at Kargopol on 18 March 1938, and the Russian Church honours him among the New Martyrs and Confessors of the twentieth century.

In 1902 Theodosius entered the Monastery of Saints Boris and Gleb at Rostov as a novice, in 1907 he was tonsured a monk with the name Theophanes, and in 1908 he was ordained hierodeacon. After the godless came to power the monastery was closed in 1923. The monks agreed to keep it going in the form of an agricultural cooperative, but in 1929 the last monasteries in the country were closed, this one among them.

After the closing of the community, Hierodeacon Theophanes moved to Sergiev Posad and was received to serve in the Dormition church, where he remained until 21 October 1935. On that day he was arrested together with a group of church servants living in the Posad. All were charged with counterrevolutionary and anti-⁠Soviet activity. At the interrogation he was told that he had spread false rumours among the faithful about persecution, and he answered that nobody had asked him such a thing and that he had said nothing to anyone about the persecution of believers. He did not admit guilt and said that he had not spoken against the authorities. On 8 January 1936 the Special Council of the NKVD sentenced him to three years of exile in the Northern Territory, first at Arkhangelsk and then at Kargopol.

In the autumn of 1937 an NKVD officer drew up a note for the arrest of Father Theophanes, charging him, on the word of informers, with spreading rumours about famine in the Soviet Union, with saying that life in the collective farms was impossible and that the Bolsheviks had been feeding the people on promises for twenty years. He called him a counterrevolutionary and asked that he be held in prison in the first category, as a servant of the Church and a candidate for shooting. On 25 September 1937 Father Theophanes was arrested and imprisoned at Kargopol. The same day an exiled priest who was an NKVD informer was questioned, and he said that Grafov could not bear the collective farms and called them the kingdom of the antichrist.

Asked then what counterrevolutionary activity he had carried on and who his associates were, the hierodeacon answered that he had had neither such activity nor accomplices. On 15 October 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years in a labour camp. Hierodeacon Theophanes died in the camp at Kargopol on 18 March 1938 and was buried in an unknown place.

The saint is commemorated on 18 March, the day of his repose, and, according to the Azbyka page, on 5 June and 1 November. The year of his canonization is not given.