Eleutherius (Pechenikov)

Hieromartyr Eleutherius (Pechenikov) was born in 1870 in the village of Pripechino, Cherikovsky district, Mogilev province, into a peasant family. In 1892, he was drafted into the army and served as a private. The exact time of his ordination is unknown. He served as a regimental priest. Since 1896, he became a monk of the Smolensk Trinity Monastery.

On December 5, 1922, Father Eleutherius was arrested by the Smolensk Provincial Department of the GPU as an opponent of the renovationist movement and a "staunch supporter of Tikhon."

On December 10, 1922, he was released on bail. On March 20, 1924, the monk was arrested again, this time accused of "participating in a counter-revolutionary organization," and placed in pre-trial detention in Smolensk.

On April 3, 1924, the charges were dropped, and the travel ban was lifted.

On February 26, 1930, he was arrested for the third time. The accusation was "participation in a counter-revolutionary organization" in the case of the "Smolensk Cathedral Brotherhood." Father Eleutherius was held in the Smolensk prison during the investigation.

On May 28, 1930, Monk Eleutherius (Pechenikov) was sentenced by the OGPU Collegium of the USSR to 10 years in a concentration camp. He served his sentence in the Solovetsky labor camp and, in 1932, was transferred to the Mankent station on the Turkestan-Siberian railway in the Sayram district of the South Kazakhstan region.

On June 23, 1937, Father Eleutherius was arrested in the camp along with Protopriest Hieromartyr Vladimir Smirnov, Hegumenia Venerable Martyr Eva (Pavlova), Protopriest Hieromartyr Nikolai Tolgsky, and others in the case of Metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov), Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh), and Archbishop Alexei (Orlov). Schema-Archimandrite Eleutherius was accused of counter-revolutionary activities as the "leader of a secret monastery in Mankent, conducting secret monastic tonsures." He did not plead guilty to counter-revolutionary activities.

On July 26, 1937, the Special Troika of the NKVD for the South Kazakhstan region sentenced Father Eleutherius (Pechenikov) to the highest measure of punishment.

On August 27, 1937, he was executed in the Fox Ravine near the city of Chimkent and was buried in an unmarked mass grave.

Hieromartyr Eleutherius was glorified by the Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000.