Confessor
Venerable Confessor Agapitus (Taube)
1894 — 1936
Also known as: Прп. Агапит (Таубе), исповедник, Исповедник Агапит (Таубе), монах, Агапит Оптинский, Михаил Михайлович Таубе
A monk and spiritual son of St Nikon (Belyaev) of Optina, who endured the Solovki camp at Kem, exile near Arkhangelsk and the Mariinsk camps, and died in Orel in 1936, bearing a painful illness with meekness.
Agapitus, born Mikhail Taube on 4 November 1894 in Gatchina into the family of an official, Baron Mikhail Taube, studied law at St Petersburg University until he was called up in 1916; he served as an artillery officer and was seriously wounded. In 1922 he joined the museum set up in the closed Optina Monastery as keeper of its library, became the spiritual son of Elder Nektary and then of Hieromonk Nikon (Belyaev), and received monastic tonsure with the name Agapitus.
Arrested in June 1927, he put on his cassock with joy. He was sentenced to three years in the Solovki camps, served at Kem together with Fr Nikon, was exiled near Arkhangelsk in 1930, arrested again in 1931 and sent to the Mariinsk camps in Siberia. Released, he settled in Orel. In 1936 he developed a tumour of the tongue and lost the ability to eat and speak, yet went to church while he could. He died on 18 July 1936 with his eyes fixed on an icon of the Mother of God. He is commemorated on 5/18 July and among the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church.