Hieromartyr Peter (Zverev), Archbishop of Voronezh

DATE CORRECTION: none of the four previously listed dates (June 29, February 22, January 18, July 12) match his date of death — replaced with the correct one.

Hieromartyr Peter, born Vasily Konstantinovich Zverev, was born February 18, 1878, in Fili near Moscow, the son of a priest. He took monastic vows in 1900; became a noted preacher, ascetic, and close associate of Patriarch Tikhon in the struggle against the renovationist schism. He successively held several sees (Balakhna, Old Russia, Bogoroditsk); in January 1926 he was appointed ruling archbishop of Voronezh, where he restored parishes seized by the renovationist "Living Church."

He was arrested in November 1926, sentenced to 10 years, and sent to the Solovki special-purpose labor camp. There he continued pastoral ministry among the prisoners, earning spiritual authority even among part of the camp administration. He contracted typhus and died February 7, 1929, on Sekirnaya Gora, Anzer Island, where he was buried.

He was locally glorified by the Voronezh diocese in 1999; included in the church-wide Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia by the Jubilee Bishops' Council in August 2000.

His feast is kept on January 25/February 7; also June 4/17 (finding of relics, 1999) and July 27 (translation of relics to Voronezh, 2009).