Feogen (Kozyrev)

Feogen was born on January 27, 1862, in St. Petersburg, into a family of a courtier. In 1883, he graduated from the Alexandrovsky Gymnasium. He was a widower and had a son, Nikolai, who emigrated abroad after the October Revolution. Father Feogen (then Vasily Lvovich), being close to the royal court, was forced to go into hiding from the Bolsheviks. He found refuge in one of the monasteries in the Diocese of Kaluga, where in 1924 he took monastic vows and, in 1926, was ordained to the priesthood. From 1924 to 1929, he lived in the town of Meshchovsk and later in Masalsk, in Kaluga Province, during which time he became acquainted with Bishop Herman (Weinberg) of Masalsk.

On April 3, 1930, Bishop Herman (Weinberg) was appointed to the Alma-Ata diocese. He arrived in Alma-Ata accompanied by Hegumen Feogen (Kozyrev). In the early spring of 1932, Hegumen Feogen was elevated to the rank of Archimandrite.

On December 10, 1932, Archimandrite Feogen was arrested at the St. Nicholas-Kuchugur Church along with Bishop Herman, Protopriest Alexander Skalsky, Protopriest Stefan Ponomarev, and Protopriest Philip Grigoryev.

On June 25, 1933, by a decree of the troika of the OGPU in Kazakhstan, Archimandrite Feogen was exiled to Western Siberia for a period of 3 years. From 1933 to 1935, he served his sentence in the town of Tara, Omsk region.

After his exile ended in December 1935, Archimandrite Feogen returned to Alma-Ata to serve at St. Nicholas Church. In March 1936, he was arrested again by the NKVD and exiled to the city of Shymkent, where he was arrested once more on December 1, 1936. On May 21, 1937, Archimandrite Feogen was sentenced in Shymkent under Articles 58-10, 11, and 59-7 to five years of imprisonment and was exiled to the Northern Region.

He passed away on July 12, 1939, and was buried in an unknown grave.

On February 28, 1990, he was rehabilitated by the prosecutor’s office of the Kazakh SSR for the 1936 repressions, and on June 29, 1990, by the Shymkent Regional Court for the 1937 repressions.

He was canonized by the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000.