Bishop
Joasaph (in the world Ivan Ivanovich Udalov) was born on April 5, 1886, in Ufa into a merchant family. He graduated from the Ufa Spiritual School, the Ufa Spiritual Seminary, and the Kazan Spiritual Academy. In 1910, he was tonsured as a monk and elevated to the rank of hieromonk. From 1910, he taught at the Zhytomyr Pastoral School, then became the assistant inspector of the Kazan Spiritual Academy and the abbot of the Kazan Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. In 1920, he became the Bishop of Mamadysh, and from 1922, he was the Bishop of Chistopol, during which time he opposed the Renovationist movement and served secretly. In 1924, he was arrested and imprisoned in Butyrka prison, then released under a pledge not to leave. In 1925, he was arrested again and sentenced to three years of exile in the Zyryan region, after which he was in exile in Turukhansk and Kozmodemyansk. In 1931, he was arrested in connection with the case of the 'counter-revolutionary, religious-monarchist organization-center “True Orthodox Church.”' In 1932, he was sentenced to three years of imprisonment, working in camps. In 1936, he was released, serving molebens and panikhidas in Kazan, not recognizing the authority of Metropolitan Sergius. In November 1937, he was arrested, accused of organizing a counter-revolutionary church underground, and shot on December 2, 1937. In 2008, he was canonized as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church.
