Hieromartyr
Hieromartyr Sergius (Krotkov)
1876 — 1938
Also known as: Сщмч. Сергий пресвитер (†1938), Сергий Кротков, протоиерей, Кротков Сергей Михайлович
An archpriest and First World War regimental chaplain who later served village parishes near Moscow. Arrested after the liturgy in March 1938, he was shot at the Butovo firing range on 1 July 1938 and glorified in 2000.
Hieromartyr Sergius Krotkov was born in 1876 in Podlesnaya Sloboda, Ryazan province, the son of a priest who died when the boy was three. Educated at the Ryazan seminary as an orphan, he was ordained priest in 1903. In the First World War he served as chaplain of the 139th Morshansk regiment on the Austrian front, receiving the Order of St Anne and the St George Cross and being raised to archpriest.
From 1922 to 1930 he was rector of the St Nicholas church in Tsarevo near Moscow, then served for over seven years at the Protection church in Pokrovskoye. Warned by the NKVD in early 1938 that the church would be closed and he himself was in danger, he refused to abandon his flock. In March 1938 he was arrested after celebrating the liturgy; under interrogation he said that his only 'counter-revolution' was church services. Sentenced by an NKVD troika on 14 June 1938, he was shot at Butovo on 1 July 1938. He was glorified by the Bishops' Council in August 2000. His feast is 18 June (1 July, new style).