Tikhon of Arkhangelsk

Holy Hieromartyr Tikhon of Arkhangelsk, a priest, was born on 30 May 1875 in the village of Bolshoe Popovo in Voronezh province, in the family of the priest John Arkhangelsky. His parents died early, and he and his younger sister were brought up by a cousin, Zinaida, and her husband Peter, who sent him to the theological seminary. After finishing it he married the devout Chionia, born on 8 April 1883 in the village of Novy Kopyl, in the family of the priest John Dmitriev. They had eighteen children, of whom nine survived, six daughters and three sons. Soon after the wedding he was ordained a priest for the church of the village of Troekurovo, near Lebedyan.

The family lived by working the land, and the mother raised the children in prayer, in the church feasts and in fasting according to the rule, even when fasting merged with the hunger of the years of persecution. Father Tikhon was a diligent and zealous pastor, much given to prayer and compassionate toward people's sorrows, firm yet sparing of words, and he was raised to the rank of archpriest.

In 1928 the authorities closed the church of Troekurovo and meant to register the priest among the kulaks in order to seize his property. A village council clerk who respected him warned him, and the family left in haste for Lebedyan. Bishop Uar (Shmarin) of Lipetsk sent him in turn to several parishes, but the churches were closed one after another. At last he served in the village of Kuimany, a large village of devout peasants, where the church was full at services, and there he remained until his arrest.

On 9 August 1937 NKVD agents entered the house and asked if he had any weapons, and he answered that he had the cross and prayer. One agent drew a pistol from behind the stove and said that this was his weapon. He was led away in his summer cassock, with no time to dress. Taken first to Trubetchino and then to the prison in Lipetsk, he was interrogated for two months. The investigator claimed that witness statements proved anti-⁠Soviet activity. Father Tikhon admitted only that he thought the communists were people gone astray who needed to come to know God, and he denied any terrorist intent, any guilty connection, and the charge of belonging to an organization led by the diocesan bishop.

On 4 October 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced him to death. Before the shooting an agent asked whether he would not renounce, and he answered that he would not. He was shot on 17 October 1937 on the edge of Lipetsk and buried in a common grave, today unknown. His wife Chionia was arrested on 12 December 1937 and sentenced to eight years in the camps; she died in 1945, after release.

He is commemorated on 17 October, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, and on 23 September in the Synaxis of the Saints of Lipetsk, all in the new style.