Damaskin (Tsedrik)

In the world, Dmitry Dmitrievich Tsedrik, was born on October 29, 1878, in the village of Mayaki, Odessa County, Kherson Province, into the family of a postal official. He was the brother of Priest Nikolai Tsedrik.

After graduating from the Kherson Theological School in 1893, he entered the Odessa Theological Seminary.

In 1895, he transferred to the Kherson Teacher's Seminary.

In 1902, he completed missionary courses at the Kazan Theological Academy.

On June 9, 1902, he took monastic vows with the name Damaskin. The next day, he was ordained a hierodeacon, and on June 30, he was ordained a hieromonk.

From October 26, 1902, he was the head of the Chita Missionary School.

On November 15, 1903, he was appointed a missionary to the Aginsky and Irgensky regions, and on January 1, 1904, he was transferred to the same position in the Kurumkan-Gargin Missionary District.

On September 12, 1905, he was enrolled as a listener at the courses of the Eastern Institute in Vladivostok. At the same time, he performed the duties of a singing teacher (from November 1905) and a law teacher (from September 1906) at the Vladivostok Men's Gymnasium.

On February 1, 1907, he was assigned to the Vladivostok Archbishop's House, served as the rector of the church of the Eastern Institute, and served at the church at Sedanka Station (a suburb of Vladivostok).

On July 1, 1907, he was appointed to the position of dean of the Kamchatka and Gizhiginsky districts, but on August 2, he was relieved of this assignment and remained in Vladivostok.

From November 1908, he was the rector of the church of the Vladivostok Men's Gymnasium.

In 1909, after completing the Eastern Institute, he went on leave to Saint Petersburg, intending to enroll in the fourth year of the Eastern Faculty of Saint Petersburg University.

On May 31, 1910, he was appointed a missionary to the village of Bolkhuny (Bolton-San) in Cherno-Yar County, Astrakhan Province.

On October 20, 1911, he was assigned to the Don Archbishop's House, where he conducted missionary work among the Kalmyks.

During World War I, he served on the Caucasus Front as the head of a Red Cross medical and food detachment (from spring 1915) and a detachment to combat infectious diseases (from 1916). In 1917, he was a sanitary worker and regimental chaplain of the 10th Army Reserve Regiment on the Southwestern Front.

On May 9, 1918, he was demobilized.

In 1918, he was arrested in the Oryol Province and sentenced to execution, but he escaped execution. That same year, he moved to Kyiv and became a monk at the Kyiv St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery. He was enrolled as a student at the Kyiv Theological Academy. Kyiv Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) appointed him as a diocesan missionary.

After the retreat of General A. I. Denikin's troops from Kyiv in the fall of 1919, he moved to Crimea.

In 1920, Archbishop Dimitry (Abashidze) of Tavria elevated him to the rank of archimandrite and appointed him rector of the St. George Monastery in Balaklava, located 12 versts from Sevastopol and 8 versts from Balaklava, on a high shore near the Black Sea.

According to Archbishop Nikodim (Krotkov), in Crimea, Archimandrite Damaskin zealously defended the interests of the Church before the authorities and proved himself to be an active and dynamic individual, a "lover of graceful worship (he was an excellent reader and singer), a diligent preacher, and a skillful practical worker."

On November 5, 1922, he was brought to trial in Simferopol but was acquitted by the Supreme Court of the Crimean ASSR.

At the beginning of 1923, he was arrested again on charges of "resisting the confiscation of church valuables," spending nine months in prison along with Bishop Eusebius (Rozhdestvensky). He was then released and exiled from the republic, moving to Moscow, where he lived in the Danilov Monastery.

In 1923, representatives of the communities of the city of Glukhov in the Chernigov province petitioned Patriarch Tikhon (Bellavin) of Moscow and All Russia to open a bishop's see there.

On November 18, 1923, Patriarch Tikhon conducted the consecration of Damaskin as Bishop of Glukhov, vicar of the Chernigov Diocese, and appointed him as the temporary administrator of the Chernigov Diocese. That same year, he was also temporarily managing the Starodub vicarage due to the exile of the vicar. In January 1924, he arrived in Glukhov. The bishop organized the activities of the diocesan administration and chancellery, the vicarial and dean's offices, and made pastoral visits throughout the diocese.

On September 15, 1924, he was arrested in the city of Nezhin, Chernigov province, and placed in the Chernigov prison. He was accused of organizing illegal church administrative structures, opposing renovationism, and commemorating imprisoned bishops during services. Orthodox communities in Chernigov, Glukhov, Nezhin, and Novgorod-Seversky petitioned for a trial for the bishop or his immediate release if no charges were found.

On May 14, 1925, the bishop was released but was briefly arrested in July for "counter-revolutionary propaganda." In August, he was investigated in the case of the "Vozdvizhenskaya Nepluyev Monarchical Organization"—the Cross-Exaltation Religious Labor Brotherhood founded by N.N. Nepluyev, which continued to exist after the revolution as an agricultural commune. The bishop visited the Nepluyev Commune multiple times, seeing it as a way to spiritually defend against godlessness. After a search, he was required to sign a statement obliging him to move to Moscow. From September, he lived in the Danilov Monastery in Moscow.

On November 30, 1925, he was arrested along with a large group of bishops in the case of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky) of Krutitsy. He was accused of participating in the illegal "Danilov Synod." He was held in the internal prison of the OGPU and in Butyrka prison. On May 21, 1926, he was sentenced by a special meeting of the OGPU College to three years of exile in Siberia.

In November 1928, the bishop was released with restrictions on his place of residence. On his way from exile, on December 11, 1928, he met and had a long conversation with Metropolitan Sergius in Moscow but was not satisfied with the words of the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens that the "Declaration" was beneficial to the Church as it facilitated its legalization in the state.

From late 1928, he lived in Starodub, which was formerly part of the Chernigov Diocese, and served in the Church of John the Baptist.

In April 1929, after receiving an order from Metropolitan Sergius for the clergy to provide information about church communities to the authorities, he ceased commemorating Metropolitan Sergius during services. In May, he wrote to Metropolitan Sergius, stating that the issuance of the "Declaration" signified a renunciation of the Church's dignity and internal freedom.

On November 27, 1929, he was arrested in Starodub as the "leader of a church counter-revolutionary group" and placed in the Smolensk prison. He was accused of "organizing active resistance to Soviet measures against the Church," "preparing for the transition of all church activities to the underground (catacombs)," and "counter-revolutionary opposition to Metropolitan Sergius." During the investigation, he denied the accusations based on informants' reports of organizing "conspiratorial counter-revolutionary meetings"; in a letter to the regional department of the OGPU, he emphasized the apolitical nature of the "true Orthodox" movement in the Church and wrote about the futility of the state's struggle against the Church, as "it is impossible to destroy the eternal idea of Christianity, for it is in the spirit of man."

On May 28, 1930, he was sentenced by the Collegium of the OGPU for the Western Region to 10 years of hard labor camps. He served his sentence in the Solovki camp on Anzer Island and was released due to disability at the end of November 1933.

In early 1934, he arrived in Kherson.

On August 1, 1934, he was arrested in Nezhin by the Chernigov regional NKVD administration on charges of "conducting organizational work directed against Soviet measures" and "being a member of the illegal counter-revolutionary organization of churchmen, the True Orthodox Church." He was imprisoned in Chernigov.

On August 14, he was sent to Kiev under the jurisdiction of the State Security Administration of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR. During the investigation, he did not hide his beliefs and categorically denied involvement in counter-revolutionary organizations.

On February 15, 1935, he was sentenced by a special meeting of the NKVD of the USSR to 3 years of exile in the Northern Region.

Initially, he served his exile in Arkhangelsk. On March 3, 1936, he was arrested in Arkhangelsk on charges of "illegally heading the Vyatka Diocese of the Orthodox Church of the Victorian orientation and illegally leading it through a counter-revolutionary group of churchmen, giving them counter-revolutionary instructions" ("The Case of Bishop Damaskin (Tsedrik), 1936").

In April, he was transferred to the jurisdiction of the NKVD in the Kirov region. He denied all the charges against him. While in prison in Kirov, he wrote a detailed explanatory note to the special meeting of the NKVD of the USSR about the "abnormal situation of believing citizens of the USSR," in which he accused state bodies of "unconstitutional forms of relations to the Church."

On October 27, 1936, he was sentenced by a special meeting of the NKVD of the USSR to 5 years of hard labor camps.

From late 1936, he served his sentence in the Burminsk branch of the Karaganda camp (Kazakhstan), working as an accountant.

On August 13, 1937, he was arrested in the camp on charges of "anti-Soviet agitation and organizing illegal gatherings." The reason for his arrest was the celebration of Easter by Bishop Damaskin and his associates. He did not plead guilty.

On September 15, 1937, at 11 p.m., he was executed by shooting in the Karaganda camp following the verdict of the Special Troika of the NKVD for the Karaganda region dated September 10, 1937.

He was buried in an unmarked grave.

On May 3, 1989, he was rehabilitated for the 1936 charges.

On April 6, 1990, he was rehabilitated by the Karaganda city prosecutor's office for the 1937 charges.

He was canonized among the holy new martyrs and confessors of Russia by the Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000 for general church veneration.