Serafima (Gorshkova)

She was born on February 2, 1893, in the village of Khmelniki, Uglich Uyezd, Yaroslavl Province. Feeling an early inclination towards a contemplative monastic life, Anna took the tonsure with the name Serafima and labored in a monastery until 1917.

After the revolution, she had to wander. In 1921, she managed to settle in Petrograd at the Resurrection Novodevichy Convent, but to support herself, she had to work as a glazier.

On February 17, 1932, Nun Serafima was arrested and sentenced to three years of exile in Kazakhstan. In the city of Chimkent, she remained in exile longer than required by the authorities, as she found her calling in serving the clergy exiled to that place. Thus, together with her spiritual mentors, involved in the "case of Hieromonk Gabriel (Vladimirov) and others," Mother Serafima was deemed worthy of holy martyrdom. She was arrested on September 10, 1937, and executed on November 19.

She was canonized among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia at the Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000 for universal churchwide veneration.