New Hieromartyr Seraphim, Archbishop of Smolensk and those with him

Seraphim (Mikhail Ostroumov) was born in Moscow in 1880 into a psalm-reader's family and graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy. He became a monk in 1904, was rector of the seminary at Kholm, and in 1916 a bishop. From 1917 he was bishop of Orel, and from 1927 archbishop of Smolensk. He was twice put under house arrest in 1918, arrested again in 1922, and expelled from his diocese in 1926.

On 11 November 1936 he was arrested with nine other clergy. A three-member NKVD panel sentenced him to death, and he was shot on 8 December 1937 near Smolensk. In the Church's calendar, fourteen priests of the region and a layman, Paul, who died in the same persecution in 1937 are remembered with him. He was added to the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church in 2001.