Hieromartyr Arethas of Valaam (Alexander Fyodorovich Mitrenin in the world) was born on November 21, 1879, in the city of Kronstadt. He entered Valaam Monastery on May 26, 1902, and was enrolled as a novice on March 20, 1906. On May 22, 1910, he was tonsured into monasticism with the name Arethas. He was ordained a hierodeacon on July 30, 1915, and a hieromonk on April 28, 1921. Beginning in February 1917, he fulfilled the obedience of singing and reading at the kliros of the Moscow Dependency of Valaam Monastery and took his turn celebrating the divine services. In 1925, he traveled to Finland, to Valaam Monastery, from which he was expelled on October 22 for his faithfulness to the Russian Church and the Julian calendar.
From 1927 onward, he lived at the chapel of Valaam Monastery on Vasilyevsky Island in Leningrad. He was arrested on February 18, 1932. The interrogation transcript records his words:
The chapel of Valaam Monastery on Vasilyevsky Island “I have never actively opposed the Soviet authorities, but I cannot be a Soviet man, because we monks have been deprived of everything: monasteries and churches are being closed, clergymen are being exiled; in general, the Soviet authorities are persecuting religion everywhere.”
The sentence pronounced against him was as follows: “Exile to Kazakhstan for a term of three years, beginning February 17, 1932.”
He reposed in exile in November 1932, at the age of fifty-three, and was buried in the city of Tashkent.
He was numbered among the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Jubilee Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000, for veneration throughout the Church.
