Vissarion Selinin

Saint Vissarion Selinin, hieromartyr, was a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church in Central Asia and was cut down with sabres on 1 May 1918 at Urzhar. He was glorified among the saints as a hieromartyr in 2000. He is commemorated on 18 April by the old calendar (1 May on the new style) and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church.

He was born on 22 November (4 December) 1876 in the village of Iudino, Aleksandrov district, Vladimir governorate. He attended two classes at the theological seminary of Vladimir and from 1896 to 1899 was a psalm-⁠reader in the diocese of Vladimir. From 1899 he served as psalm-⁠reader in the Cossack settlement of Peschanskaya, Pavlodar district, Omsk governorate. In 1902 he was ordained deacon, and in 1905 he was transferred to the church of the Holy Martyrs Florus and Laurus in Pavlodar. In 1906 (by other reports, in 1907) he was ordained priest at the church in the village of Ilyinka. In 1910 he was transferred to the diocese of Turkestan. He served at the church in the village of Gerasimovka, Lepsinsk district, Semirechye region, and from 1911 was rector of the church in the village of Ivanovskoe, Lepsinsk district.

In 1916 he was appointed rector of the church of the Holy Prophet Elijah in the Cossack settlement of Urzharskaya, Lepsinsk district. On 1 May 1918 Father Selinin was hacked down with sabres during a clash between a May Day demonstration and a cross procession.

In August 2000 the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, on the proposal of the diocese of Alma-⁠Ata, numbered him among the saints, the new martyrs and confessors of Russia. His day of commemoration was set as 18 April (1 May).

His father, Methodius Borisovich Selinin (died 30 December 1899), had finished the theological seminary of Vladimir in 1858, was ordained priest in 1860 and served at the church in the village of Vasilyevskoe, Yuryev district, and from 1868 in the village of Malyshevo, Melenki district. From 1887 he was rector of the church at Iudino, Aleksandrov district.