Karaganda, April 1966. On the 19th of the day, on the feast of Radonitsa, the earthly path of schetiarchimandrite Sebastian (Fomin), a priest, who managed to preserve the spirit of monastic life in the conditions of the most severe anti-church repressions, ended. He was 82 years old.
Stefan Fomin, a peasant son from the Orel province, remained a round orphan as a preschooler. In the skete of the Kozelskaya Vvedenskaya Desert he came in 1909, enlisting in the service of Hieroschemonic Joseph. Later he courted St. Nectarius, adopting the experience of old age. The young man received the monastic name Sebastian in the revolutionary 1917.
After the dispersal of the monastery and ordination in hieromonk, Father Sebastian moved to Kozlov (now Michurinsk). Services were held in rented apartments. The denouement came in 1933: the Chekists arrested him with a group of nuns, fabricating a case of a “monarchical conspiracy”. The prisoner was offered freedom in exchange for a public rejection of God. Having received a categorical refusal, the OGPU troika sent him to Dolinka, a branch of Karlag, for seven years. There, the former kelenik survived, working as a water carrier and sleeping in a stable next to cattle, warming himself with the warmth of animals.
He was released in 1939. The priest decided not to return to the center of Russia, but to settle near Karaganda, in the village of Bolshaya Mikhailovka. There gradually formed an informal monastic circle. Until 1955, all the sacraments were performed secretly: believers moved through the night streets, and the windows in the houses were covered with blankets.
When the community was finally allowed to open a prayer house, parishioners secretly removed 50 cubic meters of land from it overnight to make the room taller. The abbot of the new temple was Archimandrite Sevastian (San received in 1957). He was distinguished by his principled observance of the canons: he categorically prohibited conversations during worship and demanded a slow, meaningful reading.
Shortly before his death, the seriously ill pastor took tonsure in the great scheme. Farewell to him resulted in a procession of thousands that blocked the highway. Almost thirty years later, in 1997, his incorruptible remains were found, which were placed in the Karaganda Holy Vedensky Cathedral.
Memorial Days
April 19
The Holy Land Charitable Foundation
Lives of Saints
