the holy new martyrs of eastern russia - Coptic Orthodox teaching

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of the West Kazakhstan region. The sentence was carried out in the Caspian
town of Guriev (according to one source, on the same day).
Hieromartyr Nectarius was canonized by the Russian Church Abroad in
1981.
*
Protopriest Arcadius Ivanovich Volokitin was born on February 14, 1887
in the village of Bogorodskoye, Ufa province into a lower-middle class family.
In 1903 he finished his studies at the Ufa theological school, and in 1909 - two
courses at the Ufa seminary. In 1913 he began to serve as a reader in the
church of SS. Cosmas and Damian in Troshkinsky village, Ufa uyezd. On
August 1, 1914 he was transferred to the village of Irnykshi, Sterlitamak
uyezd. On August 13, 1914 he was ordained to the diaconate by Archbishop
Andrew of Ufa. On August 18, 1914 he was ordained to the priesthood and
appointed to the village of Rayevka, Belebeyevsky uyezd.
In February, 1917 Fr. Arcadius was appointed superior of the church in the
village of Novo-Belokataj, Zlatoustovsky uyezd. In August, 1917 he was
awarded a nabedrennik for his zealous service to the Church of God. In
October, 1917 he was appointed in the place of the priest of the Georgievsky
women’s monastery in Ufa uyezd. Fr. Arcadius was a man of strong
character, a natural leader. His parishioners trusted him implicitly. He chose
his words carefully, and did not like empty phrases.
Fr. Arcadius had six children. The elder daughter, Maria Arkadievna,
became a Catacomb nun. The younger, Zoya Arkadievna, was told the details
of her father’s death in 1994. His son, Ivan Arkadievich, who was only two
when his father was shot, has left us his memoirs of his father. Three of his
children died when young, the third, Fedya, from cholera.
In the 1920s he served in the village of Suneyevo, and then, fro 1927, in the
city of Birsk, where he had a prayer house in which the services were
conducted without haste and in strict accordance with the typicon, with no
abbreviations. Next to the prayer house a kind of work house for the poor and
the sick was built. He actively opposed the renovationist schismatics, and in
1927 joined the Andrewite “non-commemorators”.
Fr. Arcadius’ younger brother Fr. Demetrius was also a catacomb priest.
They were both highly venerated by their flocks, and the names of both figure
in the minutes of the Congress that took place in Ufa in 1927. Although Fr.
Arcadius was not present at the Congress, his report on Archbishop Andrew
and the Old Believers was read out at the last session, after which “many
years” was sung to Archbishop Andrew and Fr. Arcadius. Fr. Demetrius was
a member of the presidium at the Congress and read a report entitled
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