Presbyter
Saint Ilya was born on July 20, 1878, in the city of Kashin, Tver Province, into the family of priest Ioann Cheredeev. In 1901, he graduated from the Tver Theological Seminary and was ordained as a priest. Father Ilya served in the church of the village of Vysokovo, Nerl District.
During the persecutions against the Orthodox Church in the late 1920s, local authorities expelled Fr. Ilya from his home, confiscated all his property, and under the threat of arrest, he was forced to leave the area. He moved to relatives in the city of Kashin and received an appointment to the church of the village of Stel'kovo.
In 1931, Fr. Ilya began to visit the homes of his parishioners with prayers and was arrested for this, sentenced to six months of forced labor, and sent to a collective farm in the village of Stel'kovo.
In 1934, he was appointed to the church of the village of Konstantinova. His wife passed away, and his unmarried sister Natalia Ivanovna helped raise his only daughter. He served here until the summer of 1937 when it became known about the authorities' intention to close the church.
After the all-night vigil on the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God, Fr. Ilya gathered the parishioners and urged them to resist the closure of the church. He proposed to collect funds for repairs, and soon the church was renovated.
However, on December 21, 1937, Fr. Ilya was arrested. During the interrogation, he refused to admit his guilt. On December 27, the NKVD Troika sentenced him to execution, and he was shot on December 29, 1937.
He was canonized among the ranks of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Jubilee Archpastoral Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000 for church-wide veneration.
