the holy new martyrs of eastern russia - Coptic Orthodox teaching

27
6. HIEROMARTYR LEONTIUS, BISHOP OF TSAREVO
Bishop Leontius, in the world Vladimir Nikolayevich von Vimpfen, was
born in 1872 in the village of Piteria. He studied at the Penza gymnasium, and
then, in 1896, entered the Kazan Theological Academy, graduating in 1900
with the degree of candidate of theology. He became a monk in 1897, and a
hieromonk in 1898. In 1900 he was appointed assistant supervisor of the Ufa
theological school, and in 1902 was sent to China as a member of the Peking
Spiritual Mission. In 1903 he became assistant supervisor of the Volsk
theological school, and in 1904 – inspector of the Kursk theological seminary.
In 1906 he was raised to the rank of archimandrite and was sent to the
embassy church in Athens, Greece. On July 11, 1914 he was released from this
post, and on September 28 was consecrated Bishop of Cheboksari, the second
vicariate of the Kazan diocese in Kazan. On February 15, 1915 he was
transferred to the see of Yerevan, becoming a state member of the Georgian-
Imeritian Synodal office. On March 24, 1916 he was transferred to the see of
Kustanai, a vicariate of the Orenburg diocese. On December 16, 1916, he was
made Bishop of Petrovsk, a vicariate of the Saratov diocese. At the beginning
of 1917 he was retired to the Pokrov-Boldinsky monastery. On September 2,
1917 he was appointed Bishop of Enotayev, a vicariate of the Astrakhan
diocese. According to one source, in 1918 he was temporarily administering
the Astrakhan diocese, and in the same year he became Bishop of Tsarevo. On
June 23 / July 6, 1919 he was shot on the orders of Kirov for appealing to the
people to give help to the wounded and sick soldiers of the both the old,
tsarist and the new, Bolshevik armies. He was killed in the courtyard of the
Astrakhan Cheka together with Archbishop Metrophanes (Krasnopolsky). His
body was thrown into a hole and refused a burial. For a huge amount of
money the bodies of the murdered hierarchs were obtained from the gravediggers
and buried near the Pokrov-Boldinsky monastery. In 1930 a brick
memorial on their grave was destroyed to cut off pilgrimages.
(Sources: Protopresbyter Michael Polsky, The New Martyrs of Russia,
Montreal: Monastery Press, 1972, p. 75; M.E. Gubonin, Akty Svyateishago
Patriarkha Tikhona, Moscow: St. Tikhon’s Theological Academy, 1994, p. 979;
http://www.pstbi.ru/bin/code.exe/frames/m/ind_oem.html?/ans/)
27