The Holy Martyr Evdokia (Kuzminova)

The Days of Remembrance:

January 23 – The Day of Remembrance

February 8 (movable) – the Synaxis of New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church

The Holy Martyr Evdokia (1884-1938; secular name – Kuzminova Evdokia Petrovna) was born in August, 17 in Istra of the Moscow Province in the family of philistine.

After the Saints Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy was opened in 1909 in Moscow Evdokia entered the community and worked as a sister of mercy. When the Convent was closed, she returned to Istra. For her being in the Saints Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy the government deprived her of civil rights.

In 1934 sister Evdokia filed an application for reinstatement of rights, but the authorities refused to do so.

She was arrested on January 19, 1938 and imprisoned in the Butyrka prison. The certificate of arrest stated: ”An ardent churchwoman, carried out counter-revolutionary activities”.  To which sister Evdokia replied: ”Prisoners in the camps are forced to work day and night, stand waist-deep in water, they are given two hundred grams of bread, people die in hundreds from hunger and cold, this is democracy and the Stalinist constitution, and people are arrested more than whenever it was.” 

Interrogations began immediately after the arrest.

— The investigation has established that you, being an ardent churchwoman, carried out counter-revolutionary activities among the population of Istra. Do you confirm this?

—Yes, I am an ardent churchwoman, but I was not engaged in counter-revolutionary activities.

— You are lying, in October 1937 you expressed counter-revolutionary terrorist sentiments toward the leaders of the party and the Soviet government. We demand to stop denials and give truthful testimony.

— I repeat, I never expressed counter-revolutionary terrorist sentiments anywhere.

— You are also accused of expressing vile slander against the Soviet government and Soviet laws.

—I didn’t express any slander against the laws and the Soviet government.

The Interrogation continued for two days, accompanied by threats and, apparently, torture. But to all the efforts of the investigators to force Evdokia to plead guilty, she answered invariably: “I do not admit”.

She was condemned by a troika at the UNKVD in the Moscow region on January 26. Accusation upon conviction: “Active counter-revolutionary agitation”, art.58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. Sister Evdokia was sentenced to be shot.

She was shot and buried in Butovo, at the so-called NKVD training ground on February 5, 1938. Rehabilitation took place on June 30, 1989.

She was glorified as the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia by a resolution of the Holy Synod on February 22, 2001.