Uar (Shmarin)

Born on November 11, 1880, in the village of Novaya Sitovka, Izberdeevsky District, Tambov Province. He graduated from the Church Teachers' Seminary on March 21, 1904. He was ordained a deacon on October 28, 1910. In 1914, while serving as a priest in the village of Tyutchevo, he became a widower. He then served as a priest in Vyborg in the Finnish Diocese, and later in the Tambov Diocese in Lipetsk. On August 20, 1926, he was consecrated Bishop of Lipetsk. The Lipetsk Diocese included the parishes of the Lipetsk, Borinsky, Nizhne-Studenetsky, Krasninsky, Lebedyansky, and Trubetchinsky districts. Bishop Uar was an unwavering opponent of renovationism and a stronghold of Orthodoxy in the Lipetsk region. He served in the Nativity of Christ Cathedral in Lipetsk, and after its closure in 1931, in the Ancient Assumption Monastery Church. Bishop Uar's archpastoral activities in preserving the Orthodox Church, his faithfulness to Orthodoxy, and his prominence among the faithful concerned the local authorities. They sought a reason to get rid of the unwanted bishop

On April 19, 1935, the Friday before Palm Sunday, a brigade of workers arrived at the Church of the Nativity of Christ in the village of Studenki by order of the local authorities to remove the bells. A multitude of local residents gathered to prevent the removal of the church bells. The unrest continued for two days.

On April 26, 1935, the Lipetsk City Department of the NKVD initiated a criminal case, accusing Bishop Uar of organizing mass protests by the parishioners of the Studenki Church, who resisted the Soviet authorities and made anti-Soviet statements. On June 8, 1935, Bishop Uar was arrested.

On September 11, 1935, he was sentenced by a visiting session of the Special Judicial Collegium in Lipetsk under Articles 58-10, Part 2, and 58-11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to 8 years of imprisonment. He was sent to KarLag, arriving from Michurinsk Prison on February 8, 1936. He served his sentence in the Samara branch of the camp. He worked as a medical assistant on Meat Farm No. 9 and then as a bookkeeper at the Samara UCHSK.

During medical examinations in 1937 and 1938, he was diagnosed with myocarditis and St. Vitus' dance.

He passed away on September 22, 1938, outside of a hospital on the Merkele section. According to the medical certificate, his death resulted from the degeneration of the heart muscle. He was buried in the cemetery of the Samara branch of KarLag (now the village of Samarka, Michurinsk district, Karaganda region).

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR dated November 20, 1991, Pyotr Alekseevich Shmarin was rehabilitated "due to the absence of a crime."

At the Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000, Bishop Uar was glorified among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia for general church veneration.