Protodeacon
Saint Martyr Protopresbyter Matvey Vasilievich Kazarin was born on November 9, 1886, in the village of Pokosy, coming from a family of psalmists. He completed 4 classes of a spiritual school and studied at the Tambov Theological Seminary but did not finish it. In 1930, he was arrested and sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment. After his release, he served in the Ilyinsky Church of the city of Michurinsk. On August 1, 1937, he was arrested for the second time, accused of counter-revolutionary agitation. On December 6, 1937, he was sentenced to 8 years in a corrective labor camp. He spent 9 months in the Michurinsk detention center and on May 17, 1938, he was exiled to the KarLag of the NKVD.
In the camp, he was assigned to general work and approached labor diligently. In 1939, he worked as a guard of the grain warehouse at the 3rd section of the KarLag. He passed away in the camp on November 12, 1942, from right-sided pleurisy and ulcerative bleeding. Protopresbyter Matvey Kazarin was glorified among the saints at the Jubilee Archpastoral Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000.
