Presbyter
Saint martyr priest Ioann Romanovich Sarv was born in 1867 in the Livonian province. He graduated from the Riga Theological Seminary and was ordained as a priest. He served in various churches, including the Transfiguration Church on the Zabalcan Avenue, where he became the rector in 1912. In the late 1920s, he was expelled from Leningrad and continued his ministry in Tikhvin. In 1934, he was arrested, but after interrogations, he was released. In 1937, he was arrested again and shot along with other clergymen who showed courage and steadfastness in the face of torture.
With him suffered: the venerable martyr Arsenius (Dmitriev), the venerable martyr Ioannikiya (Kozhevnikova), the holy martyrs Vasily Kandelabrov, Nikolai Pokrovsky, Emilian Panasevich, and Nikolai Zelenov. All of them were shot on December 3, 1937, in Tikhvin.
