the holy new martyrs of eastern russia - Coptic Orthodox teaching

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According to one (dubious) source, he took part in the “Nomadic Council”
of the Catacomb Church in 1928.
In 1929 the authorities proclaimed a “collectivization week” in order to
activate a campaign of forced collectivization. The believers feared, not
without reason, that this would lead to the closure of the church. Vladyka
Benjamin and Priest Alexander Yakovlev of the Archangel Michael church
called on believers to fast and pray for the preservation of the church without
waiting for the Christmas fast, which was three weeks away. The authorities
decided that this “week of unusual fasting” was deliberately declared by the
clergy in order to undermine collectivization, and on November 14 Bishop
Benjamin was arrested and cast into prison in Birsk. On February 26, 1930 he
was convicted of “conducting systematic anti-Soviet agitation, inflaming the
religious feelings of the population and by all means resisting the enterprises
of Soviet power, using the nuns who at his instigation conducted corrupting
anti-Soviet agitation among the believing peasants”. In accordance with
article 58-10 he was sentenced to five (ten) years in the camps and was sent to
the north. On April 7, 1934 he was released because of his invalid condition.
He did not return to Ufa province and probably died in exile in the 1930s.
According to other sources, however, in 1940 or 1941 he was arrested and
sentenced to 10 (?) years in the camps and sent to a camp. He was still in
camp in 1948, but was somehow in communication with those outside and
took part in a Catacomb Council in 1948. In 1949 he was released, but exiled
to Yakutsk, where he died in 1959.
Priest John Ioannovich Balkov was born in about 1900, of Yakut
nationality. He was ordained in 1922. He took part in the rebellion of the
Yakuts against Soviet power. From 1928 he went into hiding, his family was
shot. He was never arrested. According to one (dubious) source, he
represented Bishop Benjamin at the Council of 1948. He died on January 6,
1987.
(Sources: M.E. Gubonin, Akty Svyateishago Patriarkha Tikhona, Moscow: St.
Tikhon’s Theological Institute, 1994, p. 966; Pravoslavnaya Rus’, N 14 (1587),
July 15/28, 1997, p. 7; Bishop Ambrose (von Sievers), “Katakombnaya
Tserkov’: Tainij Sobor 1948g.”, Russkoye Pravoslaviye, N 5(9), pp. 20, 26; Za
Khrista Postradavshiye, Moscow: St. Tikhon’s Theological Institute, 1997, pp.
241-142; I.I. Osipova, “Skvoz’ Ogn’ Muchenij i Vody Slyoz…”, Moscow:
Serebryanniye Niti, 1998, pp. 279-280;
http://www.pstbi.ru/bin/code.exe/frames/m/ind_oem.html?/ans;
http://www.histor-ipt-kt.org/KNIGA/bashkir.html)
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