Hierodeacon
Venerable Varlaam (in the world Vasily Yefimovich Konoplev) was born in 1858 in the Yugo-Knauf factory of the Osinsky district of the Perm province into a peasant family of Old Believers without priests. From an early age, he sought to know the truth and, studying the Holy Scriptures, came to the Orthodox faith. In the 1890s, after long searches, he joined the Orthodox Church through the sacrament of chrismation along with his family members.
In November 1893, he was tonsured into the rassophore and settled on the White Mountain, where he became the founder of a monastery that later received the name Ural Athos. He restored the Orthodox liturgical services and paid special attention to preaching. Father Varlaam was respected and loved by the people, who came to him for advice and consolation.
In 1917, the consecration of the Belogorsky Cathedral took place in the monastery, which gathered many pilgrims. However, in August 1918, the monastery was seized by the Bolsheviks, and Father Varlaam was arrested and shot on August 12 (25). Many monks of the monastery also accepted a martyr's end. Their names were concealed by the authorities and remain unknown.
In 1998, they were glorified as locally revered saints of the Perm diocese and were canonized among the ranks of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in August 2000 for church-wide veneration.
