Presbyter
Hieromartyr Ilya Yakovlevich Berezovsky was born in 1890 in the village of Glyadenskoye, Tomsk Uyezd, Tomsk Governorate. He served as a priest in the village of Moshkovo in the Novosibirsk Region.
In 1933, Father Ilya was arrested and exiled to Kazakhstan, to the village of Chemolgan (now Ushkonyr) in the Kaskelen District of the Alma-Ata Region.
At the end of 1937, the priest was arrested again by the Kaskelen department of the NKVD. He was accused of “systematic anti-Soviet propaganda, terrorist sentiments against the leaders of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the Soviet government and communists, and of agitation to create a church community and open a church.” Father Ilya did not admit any guilt. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to the supreme penalty. Hieromartyr Ilya Berezovsky was executed by firing squad on February 3, 1938, and buried in a common, unknown grave.
He was numbered among the saints of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in August 2000 at the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church.
