Vissarion Okulov of Belogorye

Holy Venerable Martyr Vissarion Okulov of Belogorye was a hierodeacon of the monastery of Saint Nicholas at Belogorye, Perm province, and was thrown alive into the river Kama on 28 October 1918 for refusing to work for the Bolsheviks.

In the world he was called Basil Isidorovich Okulov. He was born on 26 February 1880 in the village of Nikitino in the Osa district, Perm province, in a peasant family. He was married. When the couple decided by mutual consent to take up monastic life, Basil entered on 15 September 1909 the monastery of Saint Nicholas at Belogorye, in the Osa district. On 25 April 1916 he was received among the novices, and on 1 May 1917 he was tonsured a monk. On the same day his wife was tonsured at the convent of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God in the village of Bakhareva, Perm district. On 8 October 1917 the monk Vissarion was ordained deacon by Bishop Theophan Ilmensky of Solikamsk, and on 16 November he was appointed acting treasurer of the bishop's house.

After the Bolsheviks came to power in the Perm region, Hierodeacon Vissarion was arrested and sent to Perm for forced labor. Because he refused to work, on 28 October 1918 he was thrown alive into the Kama. He was numbered among the locally venerated saints of the Perm diocese on 2 July 1998, and in 2000 the Jubilee Council of Bishops included him in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs, for veneration throughout the Church.

The saint is commemorated on 25 August and, in the new style, on 7 February (movable) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and on 14 February (movable) in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Perm Metropolis.