Vyacheslav Infantov

Holy Hieromartyr Vyacheslav Infantov was a priest in the diocese of Samara and was shot on 8 February 1938, after spending half a year in prison in 1930.

He was born in 1883 in the family of the clerk Alexander Infantov. He studied at the seminary, was ordained priest and served in the diocese of Samara. In 1930 he was arrested and held about half a year in the prison of Samara. In 1937 he was arrested again. His case belongs to the trial of Archbishop Alexander (Trapitsyn) of Samara. The archbishop was accused of having gathered in Kuibyshev all the priests without parishes, especially those returned from exile, and of giving them authority as "sufferers for the faith", used for anti-⁠Soviet agitation. Neither the archbishop nor the priests arrested with him admitted guilt, and they rejected all the charges. On 21 December 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced them all to death.

Archbishop Alexander and the priests John Suldin, John Smirnov, Alexander Organov and Alexander Ivanov were shot on 14 January 1938. Because of the large number of executions, the others went into the next group: Father Vyacheslav Infantov, Father Basil Vitevsky, who had been arrested in 1929, 1930 and 1937, and Father Jacob Alferov, a teacher before the revolution, were shot on 8 February 1938. All are buried in an unknown common grave.

The saint is commemorated on 14 January and, in the new style, on 7 February (movable) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and on 12 August in the Synaxis of the Saints of Samara.