Holy New Martyr Theophan, Bishop of Solikamsk

Theophan, born Sergei Ilmensky in 1867 in the Saratov province, taught religion in Saratov schools for many years and became a monk in 1914. In 1916 he was made rector of the Perm seminary, and in March 1917 bishop of Solikamsk, a vicar of the Perm diocese. After Archbishop Andronik of Perm was killed in June 1918, Theophan led the diocese until his own arrest at the end of that summer.

On 24 December 1918 (11 December by the church calendar), a few days before Kolchak’s troops took Perm, Chekists repeatedly plunged him into an ice hole in the Kama river in hard frost and drowned him. Two priests and five laymen died with him.