Presbyter
Saint Ismail was born in 1876 in the village of Sadunovo, Kimr district, Tver province. He completed three classes of the church parish school. He served in the army from 1898 to 1902, and then worked as a village clerk in the Kimr district. After the revolution of 1917, he chose the path of church service and was ordained as a priest. During the persecutions of the early 1930s, he was arrested and sentenced to five years of exile, but returned to his homeland after two years and began serving in the church of the village of Arkhangelsk, Kimr district.
The beginning of 1937 was marked by the closure of churches. The church in the village of Arkhangelsk was closed under a fabricated pretext. Father Ismail defended the church, but on August 7, 1937, he was arrested by the NKVD. During the interrogation, he was accused of anti-Soviet agitation. He denied all accusations, asserting that he did not engage in anti-Soviet agitation.
On September 20, 1937, the NKVD Troika issued a decree to execute the priest. Priest Ismail Kudryavtsev was shot on September 23, 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.
