Presbyter
Saint Iliya Rylko the New Martyr was born in 1881 in the village of Rydomlya, in the Tolochinsk District of the Mogilev Governorate. He completed his studies and graduated. From 1906 to 1913, he served as a church reader and cantor in the village of Khlebnoe.
In 1914, he was ordained a priest and began serving in the villages of Usokhskaya Buda, Khlebnoe and Blagovichi. In 1934, he moved to the Moscow region, where he was appointed to the Church of St Nicholas in the village of Nikolskoye-Gagarino. In 1936, he was elevated to the rank of mitred archpriest. On 23 September 1937, he was appointed to the Church of St Elias near the village of Ilyinskoye.
On 30 October 1937, he was arrested and held in Taganka Prison in Moscow. During his interrogations, he denied all charges, stating that he had not engaged in any kind of propaganda against the Soviet government.
On 19 November 1937, a Soviet NKVD troika sentenced him to death. The saint was executed on 21 November 1937 at the Butovo firing range and buried in an unidentified mass grave.
