Tikhon Buzov

Holy Venerable Martyr Tikhon Buzov, an archimandrite, was born on 16 September 1873 in the village of Shonguty in the Tetyushi district of Kazan province, in the family of the peasant Peter Buzov, and was named Joseph at baptism. His parents sent him to the zemstvo school so that he would learn to read and write.

At eighteen he went to the Sedmiozernaya Hermitage of the Ascension, seventeen versts from Kazan, where he was received as a novice. In 1901 he was tonsured and given the name Tikhon, and soon he was ordained a hieromonk. In the unrest of 1905, for ties with revolutionary students, he was sent to the Holy Trinity Monastery in Cheboksary, where he served as a chanter. From 1910 to 1914 he served at the bishop's house in Arkhangelsk and in 1911-1912 attended missionary courses in Ufa. In 1914 he was transferred to the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow, in 1915 he received the pectoral cross, in 1924 Patriarch Tikhon raised him to hegumen, and in 1926 he became an archimandrite.

When rumours spread that the Patriarch had been killed by the Bolsheviks, the monastery brethren were summoned to the OGPU. On 15 November 1927 Father Tikhon was called in, arrested and imprisoned in Butyrka. He stated that he had never said the Patriarch was tortured by the Bolsheviks, and that the aid sent to the exiled abbot came from the monastery's collection-⁠box funds. The investigation ended on 9 January 1928, with the charge that he agitated among those visiting the Patriarch's grave, spread rumours and helped exiled clergy. On 27 January 1928 he was sentenced to three years of exile, with a ban on living in the six main cities and provinces of the country.

He chose Kazan, where he served as a priest without a parish and also worked for hire. On his return, on 23 May 1933, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) appointed him to the church of the Protection of the Mother of God in the village of Ilmyany, in the Korobovo district of Moscow region. On 27 November 1937 he was arrested, held in Taganka prison and interrogated the same day. He denied belonging to a group of churchmen, spreading rumours of war, famine and diseases sent by God for unbelief, or holding defeatist views.

On 5 December 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced him to death. He was shot on 9 December 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo firing range near Moscow. In 1989 he was rehabilitated, and on 6 October 2003 the Holy Synod numbered him among the New Martyrs of Russia, for veneration throughout the whole Church.

He is commemorated on 9 December, on 29 May (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, on 11 July (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Chuvash Metropolia, on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, and on 17 October in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kazan, all in the new style.