Venerable Sevastian (Fomin) of Karaganda

Venerable Confessor Sevastian of Karaganda (secular name Stefan Vasilievich Fomin) was born on 28 October 1884 in the village of Kosmodemyanskoye, Oryol province, into a peasant family. In 1909 he entered the skete of Optina Pustyn as a novice, becoming a disciple of the last Optina elders, Sts. Joseph and Nektary. He was tonsured a monk with the name Sevastian in 1917 and ordained hieromonk in 1927. After the closure of Optina, he served as a parish priest in Kozlov (now Michurinsk). In February 1933 he was arrested for his faith and sentenced to seven years of forced labor, serving his term in the Karlag camp system near Karaganda, Kazakhstan. After his release in 1939 he remained in Karaganda, where an underground monastic community gathered around him, eventually gaining official registration for a house church in 1953–1955. He was elevated to archimandrite in 1957 and received the great schema shortly before his death on 19 April 1966, the day of Radonitsa. He was locally glorified as a saint of the Alma-Ata Diocese in 1997 and canonized for general church veneration in August 2000, among the Synaxis of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.