Anatoly (Smirnov)

Father Anatoly was a highly educated monk who led a life of great asceticism. He was an exceptional singer and an outstanding regent, composing sacred music.

In the early 20th century, Father Anatoly, along with other monks from the Glinsk Hermitage, was invited to the Holy Trinity Monastery of Missionaries in the Semirechensk region of the Turkestan territory.

He arrived at the monastery together with monks Seraphim and Theognost. The hustle and bustle of city life weighed heavily on the Glinsk monk, and during their free time from weekly services, he, along with other monks, would retreat to the mountain area of Medeu, where they collectively founded a hermitage on Mokhnataya Hill in the Aksai Gorge near the city of Verny (Almaty).

In 1909, he was ordained a hieromonk in the city of Verny.

During this period, the foundation of the Iversky-Seraphim Women's Community in the city of Verny, which was transformed into a women's communal monastery in 1910, took place. Father Anatoly contributed to strengthening the monastery with his pastoral care, spiritually guiding its inhabitants.

In 1913, great turmoil and disorder began in the Iversky-Seraphim Monastery. Father Seraphim, deeply concerned about the monastery's fate, where the spiritual life was increasingly diminishing, took his spiritual children from the monastery to the hermitage on Mokhnataya Hill. The monks themselves decided to find a more secluded place for their ascetic endeavors.

In search of a place, the monks spent the night near the city of Verny in the Aksai Gorge near a beekeeping site at the foot of the Kyzyl-Zhar Mountain and suddenly saw a bright light on the mountain. At this place, they built cells approximately 100 meters apart, dug three caves - one for storing food and two others for prayer (these caves still exist). They served in the large wooden cell of Father Anatoly. In the Aksai mountains, the monks mowed hay, grew potatoes, and planted carnations by the spring near the hermitage.

In 1916, Father Anatoly managed the bishop's choir in the Ascension Cathedral in the city of Verny.

In August 1921, all five monks of the Aksai hermitage went to the city of Verny to the Nicholas Church for the feast of Saint Panteleimon the Healer. Two of them stayed in the city, and three returned to the hermitage. On the morning of August 11, 1921, Hieromonks Seraphim and Theognost were killed by armed Red Army looters, while Father Anatoly, warned by Father Seraphim, escaped to the beekeeping site for help and survived. He conducted the funeral service, buried them, and served the forty-day memorial service for the murdered monks. After all that had happened, the surviving Father Anatoly, Father Pachomius, and Father Irakli did not stay to live in the hermitage.

After the closure of the Iversky-Seraphim Women's Monastery, the monastery's All Saints Church continued to function for some time, where Father Anatoly served from 1921. There, he also managed the choir and composed music.

In the mid-1920s, Father Anatoly moved to Sukhumi, where he also lived in the mountains. He corresponded with the nuns of the Iversky-Seraphim Monastery. Soon, they received news from the Caucasus about the arrest and execution of Father Anatoly.

On August 11, 1993, Hieromonk Anatoly (Smirnov) was canonized by the Synodal Commission of the Moscow Patriarchate as a locally venerated saint of the Almaty Diocese.

In August 2000, at the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was canonized among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia for veneration by the entire Church.