Zacharias Lobov

Saint Zacharias (in the world Zakhar Petrovich Lobov, 1865-1937) the hieromartyr was archbishop of Voronezh and Zadonsk in the Russian Orthodox Church. He was shot on 21 September 1937 in the Karlag camp in Kazakhstan. He was canonized by the Jubilee Council of August 2000, on the proposal of the diocese of Astana. He is commemorated on 9 September (22 September in the new style), on the Sunday after 25 January (7 February), in the synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, and on 4/17 September in the synaxis of the saints of Voronezh. The only church in his honour is at Novoshakhtinsk.

The priest

He was born on 23 March 1865 in the village of Petrovka, Pavlovsk district, Voronezh governorate, in the family of a minor official, Pyotr Prokofievich Lobov, who was not of the nobility. From childhood he loved the Orthodox service and chose the path of church service. He entered the theological school at Pavlovsk, then transferred and in 1882 graduated from the second theological school of Tambov. In 1886 he finished four classes at the Tambov theological seminary, and the fifth and sixth classes he completed in 1888 at the Novocherkassk seminary. In September 1888 he was appointed cleric of the Novocherkassk cathedral, where he served many years, loved and respected by clergy and parishioners. For his pastoral labours and administrative activity he received the rank of archpriest, and from 25 June 1903 he was keeper of the keys of the cathedral. At the same time he was treasurer of the Aksai Mother of God brotherhood of the Don diocese, a member of the diocesan school council and a teacher of religion at the military medical-⁠assistants' school and the commercial school of Novocherkassk. In 1923 he was widowed, and in the same year he was chosen bishop.

Bishop

On 5 October 1923, after monastic tonsure, he was consecrated bishop of Nizhne-⁠Chir, vicar of the Don diocese, by Bishops Mitrofan (Grinev) and Innocent; the see had been vacant after the death in the Tsaritsyn prison, in 1922, of Bishop Nicholas (Orlov). From 14 October 1923 he was bishop of Aksai, in the same diocese. In 1924 he was arrested and sentenced to two years in the Solovki camp. A photograph of him survives in a circle of fellow prisoners: beside him sit Metropolitan Eugene, Archbishops Mitrofan and Hilarion; in another, Archbishop Seraphim and Bishops Paul, Plato and Ambrose. At Solovki, among twenty-⁠four hierarchs, on 7 June 1926 he signed the "Memorandum of the Solovki Bishops, Presented for the Government's Consideration", which proposed that Church and state firmly observe the principle of non-⁠interference in each other's affairs. The bishops renounced participation in the political life of society, but wanted a Local Council held, a patriarch elected and services freely celebrated. The government did not deem the memorandum worthy of an answer.

Then he was exiled to the Mari region, in 1927-1928, and after his release was forbidden to live in the Don region. From February 1928 he was bishop of Novy Torzhok, vicar of the Tver diocese, and from 24 April 1928 bishop of Bezhetsk, remaining vicar of Tver.

Archbishop of Voronezh

From 24 April 1929 he was archbishop of Voronezh and Zadonsk. He arrived at Voronezh in the Paschal days of 1929. In his greeting to the flock he said: "I earnestly ask you to receive me as archpastor and father and to turn to me with all your heart and all your soul. Let us be one, for in unity is our salvation, heavenly and earthly." For the first year and a half he lived in the watchman's hut by the Dormition church, serving in the Holy Trinity Smolensk cathedral, then rented lodgings in the city. By his ascetic life, his responsiveness and true Christian humility the future hieromartyr won much love from his flock. At his services crowds of the faithful gathered from all parts of the city and nearby villages. He supported the activity of the deputy of the patriarchal locum tenens, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), and in 1931 took part in the work of the Provisional Patriarchal Holy Synod beside him. On 19 April 1932 he was awarded the right to wear a cross on his klobuk. During his governance of the diocese there was a mass closing of churches and monasteries and many arrests and exiles of clergy. After the closing of the Holy Trinity cathedral in March 1932 he served at the Dormition church, where the inhabitants of the city and surrounding villages, deprived of churches and pastors, still flocked to him for the pastoral word, counsel and instruction.

In 1933 Bishop Vassian of Tambov, released from exile, lived with him for a week; in 1934 Archbishop Onuphrius (Gagalyuk) of Kursk spent two months at Voronezh, and in 1935 Bishop Paul of Morshansk and Bishop Seraphim of Yelets stayed with Archbishop Zacharias when they visited the city. Metropolitan Manuel, who was with him at Solovki, gave this characterization: he kept Wednesday and Friday strictly, ate once a day only a Lenten millet soup, and that only after the all-⁠night vigil; in Great Lent, in the first, fourth and seventh weeks, he ate only once, again only after the vigil. In private life he was simple and liked to joke now and then.

Arrest and martyrdom

He was arrested on 23 May 1935, and his dwelling was searched. On 19 July he was charged with counter-⁠revolutionary agitation "using the religious prejudices of the masses" and with spreading provocative rumours. He was accused of hostility to Soviet power, and attention was drawn to his statements on the plight of the peasants because of collectivization, on the miserable wages of workers, on the state's policy of eradicating religion, closing churches and repressing priests. The only concrete episode on which the charge rested was a sermon on the eve of Easter 1935, in which the archbishop, according to the investigation, compared the first centuries of Christianity with present-⁠day Russia in respect of the persecution of believers and their pastors. The charge was built on the testimony of the clergy of the Dormition church (the priest I. S. Kotov, the psalm-⁠readers P. I. Dolgopolov and I. L. Nazarchenko, the churchwarden I. N. Skripitsyn), who took a hostile position toward their bishop. The testimony of other witnesses, who denied the facts of counter-⁠revolutionary propaganda, was not taken into account by the investigation. In August 1935 the indictment was confirmed, and on 10 September the special college of the Voronezh regional court sentenced him to five years in camps. On 12 November 1935 he was sent again to Solovki. On 25 November 1935 Metropolitan Sergius retired him (that is, officially relieved him of the governance of the diocese). On 21 September 1937 he was shot at the Churubai-⁠Nura section of Karlag. The priest Joseph Arkharov died with him.

Veneration

At the Jubilee Council in Moscow, 13-16 August 2000, Archbishop Zacharias was canonized on the proposal of the diocese of Astana. His image is on the icon of the new holy martyrs and confessors of Russia, painted with the blessing of Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna, now in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, in the third row of holy hierarchs, on the right side. On 30 March 2015 a charitable foundation for the revival of village churches in memory of the hieromartyr Zacharias (Lobov) was registered at Rostov-⁠on-⁠Don. His family had seven children: Gabriel, Prokopy, Alexei (in monasticism Anthony, an archimandrite, exiled in the 1930s near Arkhangelsk), Simeon, Vera, Arseny and Olga.