For many years, our family spent holidays in a summer cottage near the town of Kimry in the Tver region. We attended church in the nearby village of Kayurovo, but sometimes we visited the Holy Transfiguration Cathedral in Kimry. For some reason, it took me a long time to notice the relics kept in this cathedral. There was an impression of the foot of the Theotokos, wonderworking icons, and separately in front of the icon of some saint there were his personal belongings, in particular, a canon book. Venerating the relics reverently, I did not at first go into their historical details.
Transfiguration Cathedral of Kimry
Much later, when reading the Life of Hieromartyr Theodore Kolerov, I learned that at one time he served at the Transfiguration Cathedral of Kimry, or rather, was its rector. It turned out that it was his icon and his canon book that were kept at the cathedral!
It was an amazing acquaintance with the saint. He served there. And right in front of the cathedral once stood the house where he lived with his family. In the godless period the house was demolished. And in our days, a memorial cross was erected on the site of the priest’s house.
And you walk on the same soil the saints walked on. You venerate the cross that stands in the very place where they lived, loved, and raised their children…
The future hieromartyr Theodore Kolerov was born into a priest’s family in 1882. In those days, a priest’s son was always supposed to become a priest. With rare exceptions, this custom was observed by everyone. Thus, Theodore Kolerov followed in the footsteps of his father, Xenophont Zakharievich. At the age of twenty-three, he graduated from the Tver Theological Seminary got married, then was immediately ordained priest and assigned to the church of the village of Klyuchevoye in the Tver province. Fr. Theodore served there for six years and was then transferred to the village of Stolbovo. A year later, in 1912, he became rector of the newly rebuilt Transfiguration Cathedral in the town of Kimry. Fr. Theodore was thirty at the time. He would serve at this cathedral for the rest of his life. Don’t think, dear reader, that we are talking about decades. Fr. Theodore would be shot by the godless authorities in 1929—seventeen years after his appointment as rector.
Theodore Xenophontovich Kolerov with his wife. Photo from the 1910s. hram-tver.ru He was loved dearly. The priest did not limit his contact with parishioners only to church services and on the church’s territory. He saw through human souls, cared about the everyday life, domestic and other difficulties of his parishioners. People went to him in any circumstances, be it joy or trouble. Believers flocked to him just to talk and share their sorrows. Fr. Theodore always tried to help them, no matter what the nature of the problem was. For the wives of heavy drinkers he was a real refuge. Poor women sought help and protection from their father-confessor, and he always tried to get the rowdy ones to stop; his conversations with drunkards often turned into a joint prayer, which eventually kept the poor men from new drinking bouts.
Fr. Theodore was not indifferent to the general troubles that befell his Motherland either. During the First World War, he and his wife, Anna Mikhailovna, set up the Front Relief Society, which collected and sent parcels to the front with everything necessary. The women, under the guidance of Anna Mikhailovna, sewed clothes for the soldiers.
Back in the quiet days, Fr. Theodore gathered a fine choir at the cathedral. A great lover and connoisseur of good singing, Fr. Theodore invited famous singers to his choir. But they didn’t only sing at the services. Fr. Theodore organized concerts of sacred music, which were a great success with the townspeople. Those events were purely charitable by nature. Much later, during the terrible famine of the revolutionary years, such spiritual concerts helped such renowned performers as the singer Antonina Vasilievna Nezhdanova and the actor Sergei Golovanov survive: Fr. Theodore’s parishioners brought food to the artists as a token of gratitude and gave them to the performers after the concerts.
Fr. Theodore was greatly affected by the revolutionary changes in the country. He was an outstanding priest and a beloved pastor, who had great authority among Kimry residents. The priest attracted the OGPU’s1 attention right away. He was arrested for the first time in 1919 just for “organizing a spiritual concert without any permission from the Soviet authorities.” This wording did not qualify as a criminal charge, and Fr. Theodore was released. But he was systematically terrorized—they confiscated all the furniture from his house, ordered him to pay an indemnity to the authorities (his Life is silent about what exactly and in what amount, but usually these were completely unaffordable amounts for priests), and threatened with arrest.
In 1922, Fr. Theodore’s life suddenly went awry. Being a very active person by nature, with a lively and ardent mind, out of curiosity and a desire to figure out a complicated but pressing issue on his own, he came to a congress of the “Living Church”, also called the “Renovationist Church”. This schismatic pseudo-religious organization, formed with the active participation and financing of the atheist authorities, aimed, firstly, to kill the Mother Church, initially disguising its criminal actions as a supposedly healthy reformation of the Church, and, secondly, to lure as many clergy as possible from the canonical Church. Fr. Theodore himself did not understand how he had ended up being appointed to a number of positions in this organization. He was very enthusiastic about the idea of “reforming”, considering it necessary and timely. He attempted to start with Kimry, assembling the clergy and reporting to them on the work of the congress. But the fathers were in no hurry to respond to the “reforms”, wisely believing that an All-Russian Church Council should be convened to resolve such issues.
Fr. Theodore Very quickly saw through the deceitfulness of the “Living Church”. At that tough moment in his life, the priest communicated very closely with Archpriest Alexei Benemansky (a hieromartyr; feast: December 5). A result of their correspondence was a letter from Fr. Alexei to Bishop Peter of Tver (Zverev; a hieromartyr; feast: February 7), which read as follows: “I testify that Fr. Theodore’s intention to break with the ‘Living Church’ is sincere, and in fact it has already taken place. Now he expresses his willingness to return his membership card to the ‘Living Church’ and the mandate to Rayevsky. He has offered you repentance and will do it again.”
Fr. Theodore himself wrote to Bishop Peter: “I ask you, Vladyka, to accept me as one of the pastors of the Church, to forgive my sin committed through the work of the devil, and to allow me to serve as a priest... I offer my prayerful repentance...”
The answer was concrete: Bishop Peter banned Fr. Theodore from his ministry. He could not live without the Church; the meaning of his life was serving the Lord at God’s altar. It was very hard for Fr. Theodore not to serve in church.
A month later, Fr. Theodore wrote another letter to Bishop Peter: “If you have not yet changed your anger to mercy, then I beg you once again, Vladyka... to give me the opportunity to pray at the altar of the Most High for the forgiveness of my sin... It’s hard to convey the state I’m in. If you are our father and archpastor, then, according to the Lord’s Prayer, ‘and forgive us our trespasses,’ continue ‘as we forgive them that trespass against us’ in relation to me.”
Bishop Peter was not a cruel man or a stern archpastor. He was wise, strict and filled with divine love. He had to test Fr. Theodore, show him and personally make sure that Fr. Theodore was wholly devoted to God. The ban on serving was lifted and Fr. Theodore could serve at the Transfiguration Cathedral again.
The rector of the Transfiguration Cathedral—Fr. Theodore Kolerov (in the center). hram-tver.ru
But the godless authorities did not forgive such a thing. From the Lives of the New Martyrs we know with what maddening cruelty those who had already seemingly become victims of schism but then came to their senses and returned to the bosom of the Mother Church were persecuted. There was no mercy for them or their families. They were uprooted, erased from life, from human memory and history. They were given the harshest sentences. No measures of mitigation of punishment or relaxation of the regime in the camps were applied to them. The authorities took fierce revenge for their “betrayal”. To endure all this meant accepting the cross of confession and martyrdom. Did Fr. Theodore realize all this? Being a man of high intelligence, thinking and able to analyze, it is obvious that he understood it perfectly well. Already at the time of writing the second letter to Bishop Peter, in November 1922, the question was being decided for him: Should he take a step towards his personal Golgotha, or not? And he firmly decided to follow the Lord. The love of God proved to be higher and stronger than the fear of future suffering and death itself.
Fr. Theodore was constantly persecuted for six ensuing years. Some people were moved into his house. They threatened to take this house away altogether, and eventually they did; batiushka built another one with great difficulty. His biography does not tell us, but we can vividly imagine how he was summoned to the OGPU at any time of the day or night. Many priests were brought in for questioning right from the services—in their vestments, without being allowed to finish the service or unvest. Such were the authorities’ methods of influence in those years. The intermediate goal was to create an absolutely unbearable living environment for a clergyman, and the final goal was his refusal to serve God and the closure of a particular church on this basis. The godless Government pushed for decisions to close churches at any cost.
Fr. Theodore courageously endured all the attacks of the authorities. He continued to serve and pastor his flock. But in July 1928, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union issued a decree on the closure of the Transfiguration Cathedral. It came as no surprise: Back in 1927, the relevant procedure had been initiated. But the people stood up to defend their church. And even after this decision, the parish continued to act, appealing against the decision. However, nothing helped: in May 1929, the final decision of the authorities came: to Close the cathedral. It was a hard blow to both the priest and the parishioners. The authorities decided not only to close the cathedral, but also to rob it: a commission was set up to seize church property.
Further events developed incrementally. Fr. Theodore informed the parishioners that the last service would be celebrated at the Transfiguration Cathedral on May 19, 1929. The parish activists spread the news among the residents of all the neighboring villages.
Closure of the Transfiguration Cathedral and its conversion into a handicraft club. hram-tver.ru
May 19, 1929, was the third Sunday after Pascha—the feast of the holy Myrrh-Bearing Women. The beautiful cathedral with three altars was packed with people. After the solemn service, Fr. Theodore went up the ambo and read out the decision of the authorities to close the church. Instead of preaching, he asked the people to obey this terrible decision. The priest knew the people’s mood well and understood all too well what consequences the confrontation between the parishioners and the authorities could entail. He was trying to prevent bloodshed and save people’s lives. But the steadfast parishioners weren’t going to give up; the faithful courageously stood up for their church.
They did not let the commission into the cathedral when it arrived the next day, May 20, to rob the church. The parishioners took turns guarding the cathedral. Fr. Theodore exhorted the people, asking them to disperse. But only three days later did the faithful begin to disperse. And Fr. Theodore was arrested. Together with him Ananias Boikov, the churchwarden, and Mikhail Boldakov were seized. The sufferers were put into the Tver prison.
At first glance, Mikhail Boldakov had nothing to do with that story. His brother was a reader at the Transfiguration Cathedral, but Mikhail himself was not only not a parishioner of the cathedral—he did not even live in Kimry. He was not in the town at the time when all the events described above were unfolding. It is unclear why and how he was arrested.
The investigation lasted five months. The trial took place in Kimry on October 20, 1929. Archpriest Theodore Kolerov, Ananias Boikov and Mikhail Boldakov were sentenced to be shot by firing squad. Nothing could save Fr. Theodore, neither the work of five lawyers (three from Moscow and two from Kimry), nor appeals to celebrities who knew batiushka very well. His wife Anna Mikhailovna went to the singer Nezhdanova, whom Fr. Theodore had once saved from starvation. Nezhdanova was then in favor with the authorities. Here is what Igumen Damaskin (Orlovsky) wrote about it: “The maid opened the door to the apartment and asked, ‘Who are you?’ Without closing the door, she pronounced aloud Anna’s name. Information on the trial and the verdict had been published in the newspapers, and so Antonina Vasilievna shouted to the maid from inside: ‘Tell her that I’m away.’ Anna Mikhailovna heard this and did not ask her help anymore.”
The lawyers filed an appeal, but the verdict was upheld. Fr. Theodore learned about this on November 20, 1929.
Next, my dear reader, I want to cite the notes that Fr. Theodore made in the final days of his life in the margins of the canon book—the one that is now kept at the Transfiguration Cathedral of Kimry. Fr. Theodore could not write everything, knowing where and under whose supervision he was. But he underlined a lot in his canon book, leaving us a living testimony about the state of his soul in those dreadful days preceding his martyrdom.
Comments are quite unnecessary here. The servant of God was bidding farewell to his earthly life in the presence of God.
11/22/1929: “20/XI, 21/XI, 22/XI—crying for three days.”
11/24/1929, three a.m.: “I am reading the akathist to our Sweetest Lord Jesus.”
Underlined: “My soul, my soul, arise! Why are you sleeping? The end is drawing near, and soon you will be troubled. Arouse thyself...”
Underlined: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word (Lk. 2:29)...”
11/25/1929, underlined: “O Lord, make me to know mine end, and the number of my days, what it is, that I may know what I lack… Verily, all things are vanity, every man living (Ps. 38:5, 6)... And now what is my hope? is it not the Lord? Deliver me from all my iniquities; Thou hast made me a reproach unto the foolish (Ps. 38:8,9). Mine enemies have spoken evil things against me: When shall he die, and when shall his name perish? And though he came in to see me, his heart spake vanity; he gathered iniquity unto himself; he went forth, and spake in a like manner. All mine enemies whispered against me, against me they devised evils for me. An unjust word they set against me: Can it be that he that sleepeth shall rise up again? (Ps. 40:6–9)… Heavenly Father, I have sinned—cleanse and save me… I think of the awful day and weep over my evil deeds. How shall I answer the Immortal King? How shall I, a prodigal, dare to look at the Judge?... (From the Canon of St. Andrew of Crete)... O Master, let Thy hand shelter me, and let Thy mercy come upon me; for my soul is troubled and in distress at its departure from my wretched and defiled body. May the evil counsel of the adversary never overtake it and bind it in darkness through the sins which I have committed in this life, whether in knowledge or in ignorance. Be merciful unto me, O Master, and let not my soul see the dark forms of the evil demons, but may Thy bright and shining Angels receive it. Give glory to Thy holy name, and by Thy might lead me unto Thy Divine judgment seat. When I am being judged, may the hand of the prince of this world not seize me and snatch me, a sinner, into the depths of hades; but do Thou stand by me, and be unto me a Savior and Helper, for these present bodily torments are a joy to Thy servants (the prayer of the Martyr Eustratius)... Have mercy, O Lord, on my soul defiled through passions of this life and receive it cleansed by penitence and confession (from the Midnight Office).”
On November 29, 1929, Fr. Theodore was allowed to see his wife and son. A few hours earlier, the newspapers had reported on his execution. It is difficult to say why the authorities mocked the priest’s family so mercilessly, deliberately inflicting such pain on the people who loved him. Apart from satanic malice, there is no other explanation for this.
Mosaic icon of St. Theodore Kolerov at the belfry monument in honor of The New Martyrs of Kimry During the meeting, the priest talked calmly with his wife, all the while holding his hand on his son’s head.
A few minutes before the execution, Fr. Theodore had written in the margins of the canon book: “29/XI—eleven p.m.”
A photograph of Anna Mikhailovna was found among Fr. Theodore’s personal belongings. On the back, the names of the children and the following words were written by Fr. Theodore’s hand: “Till we meet again.”
It’s hard to say anything after these words of a saint going to his death. But I’ll add that Ananias Boikov and Mikhail Boldakov were shot together with Fr. Theodore. Do you remember the “coincidence” of Mikhail Boldakov’s arrest? But there are no coincidences with God. Mikhail Boldakov was canonized together with a host of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church. Is it possible to become a saint “by accident”? Ananias Boikov was canonized as a new martyr too.
Currently, the rector of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Kimry and the head of the Kimry Rectory is the mitered Archpriest Eugene Morkovin, grandson of Hieromartyr Nikolai Morkovin (feast: February 28). And this is hardly an accident in the eyes of God.
