the holy new martyrs of eastern russia - Coptic Orthodox teaching

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not only for the priest, but at the same time for the miraculous deliverance of
the whole community from inevitable death...”
“After this incident Fr. Timothy left that area and went secretly to Sim
factory, near Ufa. Here he served in a house church until his last arrest and
death in 1930…”
Our other source agrees that Fr. Timothy was sent to Sim factory, but says
that he was sent there in 1929 by the Catacomb Bishop Alexis (Buj), who had
arrived in Omsk, and then, in 1930 moved to the village of Novo-Troitskoye,
Iglinskaya volost, Ufkanton, Bashkiria. However, there is no record of Bishop
Alexis being in Omsk at that time, and it seems more likely that Fr. Timothy
decided of his own accord to return to his homeland and made contact there
with Bishop Benjamin (Troitsky).
In any case, on July 14, 1930 he was arrested and cast into the Domzak in
Zlatoust, Bashkiria. Then, on December 3, he was condemned by the GPU for
“being a member of a counter-revolutionary organization, entering into the
group of churchmen headed by the accused [Bishop Benjamin] Troitsky”, for
“recruiting people, working on them and preparing them for a rebellion”. In
accordance with articles 58-10 part 2 and 58-11, he was sentenced to be shot.
On December 3 he was shot.
“’By chance’”, continues Schema-Monk Epiphanius, “there happened to be
a witness of his death, the servant of God Alexander Bogdanov, who was at
that time in prison. They had ordered him to harness the sledges (this was in
winter). And at night three men, apparently priests, were taken out of the
prison bound and with their mouths stopped up so that they could not cry
out. ‘One of them,’ relates the witness, ‘was tall’ - this was Fr. Timothy. The
next morning Alexander found the sledges in the yard of the prison all
covered in blood. They had cut all three of them to pieces…”
*
In 1932 (or 1933), after a serious operation, Bishop Benjamin was exiled for
the rest of his sentence to the town of Melekess in Ulyanovsk region
(Dimitrovgrad). He was visited there by his brother, Protopriest Michael and
his family (his other brother, Archimandrite Paul (in the world Peter
Vasilyevich), also belonged to the Catacomb Church). He was also visited in
exile by Natalya Pavlovna Nikolskaya, who had formerly been the
headmistress of a gymnasium in Ufa. She sold her house in Ufa and bought
herself a house in Melkess, where she lived with some nuns. She also gave
Vladyka some money to buy a house.
According to one source, Vladyka Benjamin was arrested and shot in
Melekess in 1937. According to another, he was killed by a falling pine while
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