Vladimir Ionovich Tsedrinsky

He began his service to the Church in the Omsk Diocese, and in 1909, as a priest, he was transferred to the Turkestan Diocese, appointed as the district inspector of parish schools of the 2nd district with the duties of a missionary.

He further served in the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas in the city of Lepsinsk, Semirechye region, and from July 6, 1912, he was its rector.

He was the dean of the churches of the Lepsinsk district. Based on a report from Father Vladimir, in which he informed the Turkestan and Tashkent Bishop Innokenty (Pustynsky) about the decision of the peasant union of the Lepsinsk district to confiscate land from church estates and stop payments for services, the bishop issued an appeal in the "Turkestan Diocesan Gazette" to all truly Orthodox Christians and Russian citizens to take care of the Church and strive to ease the plight of priests.

On one of the Sundays of the Dormition Fast in 1918, he addressed his congregation with a sermon, urging them to stop the fratricidal turmoil, to be faithful sons of the Orthodox Church and the fatherland.

On August 27, after the liturgy, the priest was arrested by Red Army soldiers. The executioners, placing the priest between two horses, drove them out of the city to the cemetery, where, in front of the parishioners, they hacked him to death with sabers. The faithful took the body of the hieromartyr to the church, and the funeral service was conducted by priests from neighboring villages. He was buried in the Lepsinsk cemetery, near the place of his martyrdom.

Until the early 1930s, as long as there were priests in the area, memorial services were held at his grave on the day of his death; subsequently, the place of the hieromartyr’s burial was venerated by local residents.

On July 2, 2001, the relics of the hieromartyr were found, and they are now resting in the Church of St. John the Theologian in the city of Taldy-Kurgan (Taldykorgan).

He was glorified by the Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000.

The relics of Hieromartyr Vladimir, Archpriest of Lepsinsk