Hieromartyr Barsonuphius, Bishop Of Kirillovsk And Those With Him

Bishop Barsonuphius (Lebedev) was born in 1873. In 1894 he finished his studies at the Novgorod theological seminary. In 1895 he was tonsured as a monk, ordained to the diaconate and appointed assistant diocesan missionary-preacher of the Novgorod diocese. In 1896 he became the diocesan missionary-preacher of the Novgorod diocese. In 1897 (or 1895) he was ordained to the priesthood. In 1909 he was raised to the rank of archimandrite. In 1911 he was appointed superior of the Kazan Saviour-Transfiguration monastery. On January 8, 1917, he was consecrated bishop of Kirillovsk, a vicariate of the Novgorod diocese.

On September 2/15, 1918 he was killed for Christ together with Abbess Seraphima (Sulimova) of the Therapont monastery and four laymen. He went to his execution with his hands folded in the sign of the cross. Until he had finished praying, not one of the bullets hit him. Then the Red Army soldier in their fury hurled themselves at him and cut him down with bayonets. He was buried not far from the St. Cyril - White Lake monastery. In the 1960s a pigsty was built over the site of his burial, not far from the monastery.

(Sources: Russkye Pravolsavniye Ierarkhi, Paris: YMCA Press, 1986, p. 19; M.E. Gubonin, Akty Svyateishago Patriarkha Tikhona, Moscow: St. Tikhon's Theological Institute, 1994, p. 847; Ikh Stradaniyami Ochistitsa Rus', Moscow, 1996, p. 56; Za Khrista Postradavshiye, Moscow: St. Tikhon's Theological Institute, 1997, p. 216)