Varvara Dmitrievna Derevyagina

Varvara Dmitrievna Derevyagina was born in 1912 in the village of Burminka, Ryazhsky Uyezd, Ryazan Governorate, into a peasant family. She attended a parish school.

In 1926, she was married and gave birth to a child, but because her husband was an atheist, she returned to her parents' home and dedicated her life to prayer and service to God.

After the church in Burminka was closed in 1937, the faithful began gathering in homes for communal prayer, made pilgrimages to active churches in Skopin and Ryazan, and visited revered springs.

On June 7, 1940, all of them, including Varvara and her father, were arrested on charges of participating in an "anti-Soviet group of churchmen" and imprisoned in Ryazhsk. Varvara refused to answer questions and sign the investigation completion protocol. The trial of the faithful peasants from Burminka took place in Ryazhsk from October 23-25, 1940. At the trial, Varvara stated: "I do not consider myself guilty of anything; I have never been a member of a collective farm... I am a believer in God, I will believe in God and I will pray." The judicial board of the Ryazan Region sentenced Varvara Dmitrievna to eight years in a labor camp, and her father to death, later commuted to 10 years in a labor camp.

She served her sentence in the NKVD's Karlag.

On July 11, 1941, she was arrested in the camp on charges of "counter-revolutionary agitation and sabotage." She was part of the group case "Sundukova N.I.; Karlag, 1941." She did not plead guilty and refused to sign the interrogation protocol.

On September 29, she was sentenced to death by the permanent session of the Karaganda Regional Court at Karlag.

She was executed on January 11, 1942, and buried in an unknown mass grave.

On April 30, 1998, she was rehabilitated by the prosecutor of the Karaganda Region.

Glorified as a holy martyr and confessor of Russia in August 2000 by the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church.