Peter Ivanovich Sorokin

Was born in 1885 in the village of Dyatlovka in the Reutov District of the Moscow Region into a family of middle-class peasants. 

From 1896 to 1900, he studied at the Bogorodsk City School. 

Between 1900 and 1906, he worked as a clerk at the Istomin Manufactory in Bogorodsk, after which he served active military service in the Life Guards Jaeger Regiment until 1910. He was a singer in the regimental choir.

In 1910, after demobilization, he returned to his native village, and at the end of that year, he joined the church choir in Moscow under Ivanov's chapel. Simultaneously, he studied voice training with artists Labinsky and Petrov and worked as an accountant in Moscow.

In 1914, he was mobilized again and served as a clerk in the 84th Reserve Battalion. He also sang at concerts for the wounded. After demobilization in 1917, he returned to Dyatlovka.

In 1918-1919, he worked in the Eastern Front Concert Group serving the active Red Army under the leadership of Iosif Alexandrovich Donatov. From 1920 to 1924, he was the artistic director and singer at the Moscow Soviet Administration. In 1924, he contracted the Spanish flu, which caused him to lose his voice and his job.

He was ordained as a deacon in 1925 in Zvenigorod to the local Resurrection Church. In 1932, he was transferred to the Transfiguration Church in Zvenigorod, and from 1935, he served in Lyubertsy. In the same year, he met the Gregorian Metropolitan Vissarion (Zorin), asked the Metropolitan to accept him into service, and was accepted into the Church of the Forty Martyrs. Soon after, he moved to serve at the church in the Danilov Cemetery, which was also under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Vissarion. In March 1936, according to his own words, he left the staff of this church.

Until his arrest on November 4, 1937, he lived in the village of Temnikovo, Reutov District. After his arrest, Deacon Peter was held in pre-trial detention in the Taganskaya transit prison. During interrogations, he confirmed the guilt of other defendants in case No. 20867 (the case of Gregorian Metropolitan Vissarion (Zorin)), but did not plead guilty himself. He explained the reason for his political conversations as follows: "In order to find out the mood of the other priests, so that I could report this to the authorities."

On December 7 of the same year, he was sentenced to 10 years of corrective labor camps. He served his sentence in Bamlag, Yakutia (1938); Dallag, Vladivostok (1938-1939); Mariinsk corrective labor camps of Siblag, Siberia (1939-1947). After his release, he came to the city of Alexandrov, and soon moved to Moscow where he applied to the Holy Synod for a deacon's position.

In 1948, Bishop Nikon of Donetsk sent him to the Alexander Nevsky Church in the city of Slavyansk, Stalin Region. In the same year, Father Peter went to find a place of service closer to his birthplace, and after several relocations, he found a position at the Epiphany Cathedral in the city of Vyshny Volochek. Until June 23, 1949, he served as a deacon, then he left the staff and sang in the choir.

On October 14, 1949, Father Peter was arrested again on charges of "anti-Soviet activities as part of an anti-Soviet group of churchmen." He denied the charges, and no witnesses were found against him, but on March 1, 1950, he was convicted and exiled to Kazakhstan, to Akmolinsk. There he was a singer in the Constantine and Helen Church until his next arrest on October 4, 1951, on charges of "conducting anti-Soviet agitation among the population."

In response to the investigator's demand to tell about his criminal anti-Soviet activities, Deacon Father Peter Sorokin replied:

"Living in Akmolinsk, and in general, I did not engage in any anti-Soviet activities, and no one can prove it." The indictment stated:

"...Regarding elections in the Soviet Union, Sorokin openly said: 'What is there for us to choose deputies? They are already chosen without us. We just need to drop a paper in the box and nothing more.' He said that clergymen are unjustly imprisoned. Regarding the deacon's sermon praising Stalin, he said: 'Earlier in church, they praised the Emperor and the army, and now they praise Stalin. This is wrong.'"

On November 30, 1951, the Akmolinsk Regional Court sentenced him to 10 years of imprisonment and five years of deprivation of rights. At the court session that day, Deacon Peter Sorokin said:

"...I do not consider myself guilty of anti-Soviet agitation at all. I am guilty of church squabbles. The witnesses in the case slander me. The church steward [the witness] drinks away church property, so I petitioned for his dismissal, and since then he has been angry with me, gathered a gang, and conspired to deceive the investigative authorities. Yes, I read the newspaper, like every literate person, but I did not distort its content. Indeed, I spoke about the difficult situation of the Korean people, but that is not agitation, it is the truth. I did not speak about a war between the Soviet Union and America."

Father Peter declined to appeal the verdict and was imprisoned in Ozerlag, Irkutsk Region. There he met his death on September 16, 1953. His burial place is unknown.

Deacon Peter Sorokin was canonized as a hieromartyr by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on August 13-16, 2000, following a petition from the Alma-Ata Diocese.