Hieromartyr
Bishop Ambrose (Gudko), Bishop of Sarapul
28 декабря 1867 — 27 июля 1918
Also known as: Амвросий Сарапульский, Василий Иванович Гудко
Hieromartyr Ambrose (Vasily Ivanovich Gudko), Bishop of Sarapul and Elabuga — arrested by the Bolsheviks on Trotsky's personal order at Sviyazhsk on July 27, 1918, and killed that same day (death records indicate death by bayonet); canonized among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in 2000.
The Hieromartyr Ambrose was born on December 28, 1867. He took monastic vows and was raised to the rank of archimandrite. On October 5, 1916, he was consecrated Bishop of Sarapul, a vicar of the Vyatka diocese, administering the Sarapul-Elabuga vicariate.
After the October Revolution, during the Civil War, Bishop Ambrose was arrested on July 27, 1918, at Sviyazhsk (Kazan province) on the personal order of Leon Trotsky, who at that time commanded Red Army operations in the area. That same day the bishop was killed — surviving death records indicate he was bayoneted by Red Army soldiers. The killing of a bishop on the direct order of Bolshevik military leadership was one of the first instances of repression against a Russian Church hierarch sanctioned at such a high level.
Bishop Ambrose was canonized locally by the Kazan diocese in 1999, and then church-wide by decree of the Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000, among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.