Venerable New Martyr Sergius

Sergius Krestnikov was born on 1 July 1893 in Moscow into a worker's family. In 1905 he entered a Moscow convent, and in 1918 became a novice of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. After the lavra was closed in 1922 he sang in a church choir in Sergiev Posad and from 1928 was reader, watchman and chairman of the parish council at the cemetery church.

Arrested in 1935 with former monks of the lavra and city priests, he was sentenced to five years in the Ukhta camp. Arrested again in January 1938 as a member of a 'counter-revolutionary group', he was sentenced to death on 15 March and shot on 25 April 1938. He was canonized in 2002.