Lavrenty (secular name: Evgeniy Ivanovich Knyazev; 2 July 1877, Kashira, Tula Governorate — 1918) — Orthodox bishop, The Diocese of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas with the title "of Balakhna," canonized as a hieromartyr. He met his martyric death in 1918 during the period of persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church.[1]
Origins and Family
Evgeniy Knyazev came from the meshchanstvo (urban lower-middle class). His father, Ivan Ivanovich Knyazev, was the son of a Kashira merchant; after the grandfather's death, the family trading business was managed by his grandmother — Anna Afanasyevna Knyazeva, a merchant of the third guild. His mother, Ekaterina Vasilyevna (née Preobrazhenskaya), was the daughter of a priest, Vasily Petrovich Preobrazhensky, who had served at parishes in Tula Governorate; his last posting was the All Saints' cemetery church in Kashira.[1]
The maternal grandfather had two sons: Ivan Vasilyevich Preobrazhensky graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy with a degree of Candidate of Theology and rose through the chancellery of the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod in Saint Petersburg to the rank of Actual State Councillor and head of a department; Mikhail Vasilyevich Preobrazhensky was ordained a priest and served in Yefremov in the Tula Diocese.[1]
The father's family had four sons: the eldest, Ivan, who had been ordained a deacon, died young; two others — Mikhail and Georgy — died in infancy "due to congenital weakness." Evgeniy was born on 2 July 1877 and baptized the following day at the Kashira Cathedral of the Assumption. When he turned one year old, his father died of an apoplectic stroke — on 13 July 1878.[1]
Education
Evgeniy spent his childhood in Kashira, raised in a strictly ecclesiastical environment both in his mother's home and in the household of his archpriest grandfather. He received his primary education at the Venev Theological School (in the district town of Venev, Tula Governorate), which admitted children of clergy from the Venev and Kashira districts in preparation for seminary; the course lasted four years, and pupils lived in private lodgings. Evgeniy Knyazev studied there from 1887 to 1891. The school had a house church dedicated to Saints Cyril and Methodius and an extensive library.[1]
After the school he entered the Tula Theological Seminary, which he completed in 1897 with a first-class certificate as one of its finest students. During his seminary years he was noted for a rare and profound spiritual disposition and steadfast observance of the Church's commandments.[1]
Episcopal Ministry and Martyrdom
Having taken monastic vows under the name Lavrenty, Evgeniy Knyazev was consecrated bishop and appointed vicar of the Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas Diocese with the title "of Balakhna." In 1918, at the height of Soviet Power, Bishop Lavrenty met his martyric death.[1]
Russian Orthodox Church him as a hieromartyr. The commemoration of Hieromartyr Lavrenty of Balakhna is included in the list of Nizhny Novgorod new martyrs maintained by the Nizhny Novgorod Metropolitanate.[1]
He was shot in the Pochainsky Ravine together with the rector of the Cathedral of the Transfiguration, Archpriest Aleksey Porfyrev, and The Nizhny Novgorod Nobility Aleksey Neydgardt; the exact number of those executed in the ravine during that period remains unknown.[2]
Sources
- nne.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Metropolia
- Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — The Source of Nizhny Novgorod: What Stories the Pochaina Ravine Holds