Saint Blessed Augustine
of Russia.

Details of Blessed Augustine's early life remain sparse in available sources, but his emergence as a significant theological voice in the Russian Church by the latter nineteenth century indicates a thorough ecclesiastical education and monastic formation. His development as a scholar and churchman occurred during a period of intellectual ferment and theological renaissance in the Russian Orthodox Church.

Archimandrite Augustine subsequently became Bishop of Ekaterinoslav, serving in positions of significant responsibility within the Church hierarchy. He was known for his translations of canons, which Saint Theophan the Recluse cited as examples of appropriate liturgical translation in Church Slavonic during the period of discussion about translating liturgical texts (late 19th and early 20th centuries). He authored a Handbook for Fundamental Theology published in Vilna in 1876, contributing substantially to the theological formation of Russian Orthodox seminarians and the wider intellectual life of the Church.

Augustine served as Archimandrite and superior of the Orans Monastery near Nizhny Novgorod, a position of spiritual and administrative responsibility during the final years of the Russian Empire. At the time of his arrest on July 7, the monastery led an extremely anxious life, for it could not be unaware that the surrounding population had been incited against it and could inflict any unpleasantness it wanted on it.

As the Bolshevik Revolution unfolded and the new Soviet government unleashed its campaign of persecution against the Church, Blessed Augustine remained steadfast in his faith and his pastoral responsibilities. After the arrest of Augustine on July 7, the monastery led an extremely anxious life as the surrounding population had been incited against it.

Augustine was transferred to prison, where he together with an ardent monarchist and another priest celebrated the Liturgy together in the prison church around the feast of the Dormition, which was his last priestly act. On the night of August 17-18 he appeared before the bench of the military-revolutionary tribunal, and with his reply he signed his own death sentence; by their decision, he, Protopriest Nicholas Orlovsky and 15 other people were sentenced to shooting at the so-called "Mochalny island". At dawn all those doomed to die were seated in a ferry which sailed to the fateful spot.

The New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia - Orthodox faithful who suffered during the Soviet period (1917 to 1991) for their faith - were first glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in 1981, with the Russian Church under Patriarch Alexei II beginning to glorify them starting in 1992, and in 2000 the All-Russian Council glorifying Tsar Nicholas II and his family, as well as many other New Martyrs.

Blessed Augustine remains commemorated among the countless New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, joining a multitude of Orthodox faithful - clergy, monastics, and laity - who gave their lives for the faith in the twentieth century. His memory challenges the faithful to steadfastness in witness, particularly in circumstances of persecution and ideological hostility to Christian faith.