Venerable Martyr Euthymius (Lyubovichev)

Venerable Martyr Euthymius (Lyubovichev) was born in 1875 into a peasant family in the village of Buda Monastyrskaya, Kaluga Province. After army service he entered Optina Hermitage in 1902 and was enrolled as a novice in 1910. Eager to live as a desert hermit, he once left to live in a forest cell without his abbot's blessing and was dismissed, but later was readmitted and became cell attendant to the Optina elder Hieromonk Anatole (Potapov).

Called up in 1914, he served in a military hospital. After the war he returned to Optina; when the monastery was closed he worked in the museum there and from 1920 lived in Kozelsk. In June 1930 Archbishop Seraphim (Ostroumov) of Smolensk ordained him a hieromonk for the church in Spas-Demensk; three months later he moved to the church of St Nicholas in the village of Bobrovo. Arrested on March 16, 1931, he was held in Bryansk prison and refused to admit guilt of anti-Soviet agitation, saying he had served the faith of Christ and always taught people to endure all hardships as God's will. He contracted tuberculosis and died in the prison hospital on July 19, 1931. The Holy Synod added him to the Synaxis of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia on October 6, 2005. His feast is July 6 (July 19 New Style).