Tikhon Krechkov

Holy Venerable Martyr Tikhon Krechkov, an archimandrite, whose name in the world was Timothy Ulyanovich Krechkov, was born in 1862 in the village of Plotava in the Repyevka district of Voronezh province, in a peasant family. He entered the Alexeevsky Monastery in Voronezh as a novice, was tonsured a monk and ordained a hieromonk. Appointed treasurer of the monastery, he gave all his strength to adorning it, and for a long time many icons bore the inscription that they were made at the expense of hieromonk Tikhon. In 1924 he was raised to hegumen, and three years later to archimandrite.

In 1930, after the arrests led by Tuchkov, many servants of the Church throughout Russia were imprisoned and shot. Archimandrite Tikhon was arrested together with the brethren of the Alexeevsky Monastery. The investigator wanted to know where Father Tikhon travelled and whether he held anti-⁠Soviet conversations on his journeys. He answered that he went to villages of the former province, among them Liski, Peskovatka and Shchuchye, that earlier that year he had been at the memorial for Archbishop Peter Zverev and at the name day of Archimandrite Ignatius Birukov, and that nothing was said there about the persecution of religion or the coming of the Antichrist. He also denied having said that Soviet power is of the Antichrist, at the removal of the cross from the Maidens' Convent or at the procession with the relics of Saint Mitrofan. When called again, early in 1930, he again said that he did not admit guilt.

With him were arrested the hieromonks George (Pozharov) and Kosma (Vyaznikov), the priest George Nikitin and the laymen Euthymius Grebenshchikov and Peter Vyaznikov, who likewise did not admit guilt. On 14 July 1930 the decision closing the investigation was read to them, on 23 July the indictment was sent to the OGPU Collegium, and on 28 July the Collegium sentenced them to death. On the evening of 2 August the sentence was announced and they were loaded onto a truck. At ten o'clock that night Archimandrite Tikhon, the hieromonks George and Kosma, the priests John Steblin-⁠Kamensky, Sergius Gortinsky, Theodore Yakovlev, Alexander Arkhangelsky and George Nikitin, and the laymen Euthymius and Peter were shot.

He is commemorated on 2 August, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, and on 17 September in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Voronezh Metropolia, all in the new style.