Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev, Priest

DATE CORRECTION: none of the three previously listed dates (July 5, September 25, August 24) match his date of execution — replaced with the correct one.

Hieromartyr Sergius, born Sergei Alekseevich Mechev, was born September 17, 1892, in Moscow, the fourth child of Righteous Alexius Mechev, rector of the Church of St. Nicholas in Klenniki on Maroseyka Street (the "Maroseyka elder"). He received a history and philology education at Moscow University, considering a medical or academic career before choosing the priesthood. He was ordained deacon in 1919, and presbyter on April 17, 1919 (Holy Saturday), serving alongside his father.

After his father's death in 1923, he took over leadership of the Maroseyka community, shaping it into a close-knit network of "spiritual families" combining liturgical life, mutual aid, and catechesis — one of the most influential communities of the Moscow church underground. In 1927 he refused to accept Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky)'s Declaration of loyalty to the Soviet state, joining the "non-commemorators."

He was arrested in October 1929, exiled to the Russian North (Kadnikov, Arkhangelsk region); in 1932 his wife, Evfrosinia, was also arrested and exiled. Released in 1937, he continued secret pastoral ministry disguised as a layman near Kalinin and Rybinsk, secretly organizing parishes for the catacomb Church into 1938–1941. He was arrested again on July 7, 1941, in Tutaev, Yaroslavl region; after months of interrogation and torture he was sentenced to death on November 22, 1941, and executed on the night of January 6, 1942, in the NKVD prison in Yaroslavl. He was buried in an unmarked mass grave.

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

His feast is kept on December 24/January 6.