Vladimir Volkov

Holy Venerable Martyr Vladimir Volkov was an archimandrite and spiritual father in the Moscow region and was shot on 25 March 1938 at Butovo.

In the world he was called George. He was born on 21 April 1878 in the village of Maly Palatki in the Gzhatsk district, Smolensk province, in the family of the peasant Nil Volkov, and received his education at home. In 1899 he was called up and served until 1905 as chief clerk to the military commander of Gzhatsk. In 1906 he entered as a novice the Paraclete hermitage attached to the Trinity-⁠Sergius Lavra. On 15 July 1909 he was tonsured a monk with the name Vladimir; in the hermitage he was baker, synodikon-⁠keeper and clerk. In 1912 he was moved to the Lavra and appointed supervisor of the printing house, and on 19 March 1915 he was ordained hierodeacon. After the closing of the Lavra he served at the church of the Great Martyr Demetrius in the village of Shimanovo, Mozhaisk district. In 1930 he was ordained hieromonk and, at the request of the parishioners, served at the church of the Savior in the village of Islavskoe, Zvenigorod district. In 1931 he was raised to abbot, in 1932 to archimandrite, and in 1936 he received the blessing to serve the Liturgy with the royal doors open until the Cherubic Hymn. From 1931 he was also an accountant at the editorial office of the journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, and after the journal was closed, in 1935, he worked another year at the Patriarchate as a seller of church articles.

On 21 February 1938 Archbishop Sergius Voskresensky, vicar of Moscow, proposed that he be spiritual father to Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky and to himself, but it did not come about, for on 27 February Archimandrite Vladimir was arrested and held at Mozhaisk. The investigator accused him of having slandered the leaders of the party and of Soviet power in August 1937, at the elections to the Supreme Soviet, and in January 1938. He answered that he did not admit guilt. On 7 March 1938 an NKVD troika sentenced him to death and he was moved to Taganka, and Archimandrite Vladimir Volkov was shot on 25 March 1938 and buried in an unknown common grave at Butovo.

The saint is commemorated on 25 March and, in the new style, on 29 May (movable) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, on 19 July in the Synaxis of the Saints of Radonezh, on 8 August (movable) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Smolensk, on 5 September (movable) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, on 8 December in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Smolensk Land and on 10 December in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Radonezh.