Hierarch Tikhon (Bellavin), Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia

Saint Tikhon (Vasily Ivanovich Bellavin) was born on 19/31 January 1865 into a priest's family in Pskov province. After graduating from theological academy he was tonsured a monk and served as a bishop in America, Yaroslavl, and Vilna. In 1917, at the first Local Council of the Russian Church held after nearly two centuries without a patriarchate, he was chosen by lot as the eleventh Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia on 5/18 November 1917. His patriarchate coincided with revolution, civil war, and brutal Bolshevik persecution of the Church — confiscation of church valuables, arrests and executions of clergy, and the Renovationist schism. Patriarch Tikhon firmly defended the canonical unity of the Church, endured repeated house arrest and imprisonment, and refused to compromise with the atheist regime. He reposed on 25 March/7 April 1925. He was glorified as a confessor by the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1989, and his relics were uncovered in 1992; they now rest in the Small Cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow.