Hieromartyr Damaskin (Tsedrik), Bishop of Starodub

Hieromartyr Damaskin, born Dmitri Dmitrievich Tsedrik, was born October 29, 1877, in the village of Mayaki, Odessa district, Kherson province, into the family of a postal official. He was educated at seminary, the Vladivostok Agricultural Institute, and the Kazan Theological Academy (Eastern Department); tonsured a monk in 1902 under the name Damaskin; served as a missionary in Transbaikalia and the Far East.

On September 14, 1923, he was consecrated Bishop of Glukhov, a vicariate of the Chernigov diocese, by Patriarch Tikhon, and later also administered the Starodub vicariate. He was a resolute opponent of renovationism, and after 1927 became one of the leading figures of the "non-commemorators" movement, who broke eucharistic communion with Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) over his Declaration of loyalty to the Soviet state — he wrote sharply critical letters to Sergius and organized a clandestine network of "catacomb" parishes.

He was arrested repeatedly: November 27, 1929 (10 years in camps, from June 1930 at Solovki); after early release he continued underground pastoral work in Ukraine and Russia; arrested again August 2, 1934, in Kherson (3 years' exile); arrested March 2, 1936, in Arkhangelsk; sent to Karlag on October 27, 1936. In the camp he was arrested a final time on August 13, 1937, on charges of "anti-Soviet agitation" (the pretext, according to some accounts, being an Easter service held by prisoners). He was shot by order of the NKVD Troika of Karaganda Oblast (verdict of September 10, 1937) on September 15, 1937.

He was glorified by the Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000.

His feast is kept on September 2/15.