Saint Isaac II the Hieromartyr

St. Isaac II of Optina (Ivan Bobrikov, 1865–1938), the last superior of Optina Pustyn, governed the monastery through the Revolution and its suppression, refused to abandon his monastic vows, and after years under the shadow of the Soviet state was arrested in the Great Terror and shot with other Optina monks near Tula in 1938 — the hieromartyr of Optina.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (Optina synaxis glorified 1996 local / 2000 general)

Ivan Bobrikov, the Last Superior

St. Isaac II — called “the Younger” to distinguish him from the earlier Abbot St. Isaac I (Antimonov) — was born Ivan Nikolaevich Bobrikov in 1865, of a peasant family (Kontzevitch, Optina Pustyn i eyo vremya, Jordanville, 1970, on Isaac Bobrikov; “Isaac II (Bobrakov) of Optina,” St. John the Baptist Cathedral, following the Optina record). [Disputed: the surname is rendered both Bobrikov and Bobrakov in the sources — the Russian Cathedral of St. John the Baptist and some Russian records give “Bobrakov,” while other accounts (and the present collection’s brief) give “Bobrikov”; the same man is meant.] He entered Optina as a novice in 1884, was tonsured and ordained, and rose through the monastery’s offices; in 1914, on the death of the previous superior, he was appointed superior (namestnik) of Optina, and so held the office through the First World War, the Revolution, and the suppression — the last abbot of Optina Pustyn (Kontzevitch, Optina Pustyn, 1970, on Isaac II’s appointment as superior in 1914; “Isaac II (Bobrakov) of Optina,” St. John the Baptist Cathedral).

Governing Optina to the End

Isaac II’s superiorship fell entirely under the shadow of the catastrophe. He governed Optina as it was nationalized, reorganized as an artel, and finally closed; his was the thankless task of trying to preserve the community’s life under a state bent on destroying it, and of leading the monks through the loss of their monastery (Kontzevitch, Optina Pustyn, 1970, on Isaac II’s governance through the suppression; see The Eldership under Persecution). When the monastery was finally suppressed and he could no longer function as superior, he did not renounce his monasticism or seek accommodation with the authorities; he continued as a monk and priest, living in the region, sharing the fate of the scattered Optina brotherhood, and refusing — the accounts stress — to lay aside his vows or his priesthood despite the danger this entailed (Kontzevitch, Optina Pustyn, 1970; “Isaac II (Bobrakov) of Optina,” St. John the Baptist Cathedral). Like other clergy of the period he was subject to repeated harassment and arrest through the 1920s and 1930s.

Arrest and Martyrdom in the Terror

The end came in the Great Terror of 1937–1938. St. Isaac was arrested at Belev, where he was then living, on 16 December 1937; on 30 December he was condemned to death by an NKVD troika; and on 8 January 1938 he was shot, together with other Optina monks, in the Tesnitsky forest near Tula, one of the mass execution and burial grounds of the Terror (the arrest, condemnation, and execution are documented in the Soviet-era records as reported in the Life; “Isaac II (Bobrakov) of Optina,” St. John the Baptist Cathedral; Kontzevitch, Optina Pustyn, 1970). [Disputed: the sources give the arrest as 16 December 1937 and the execution as 8 January 1938, while his commemoration in the Synaxis is kept on 26 December (Old Style) — the Old-Style/New-Style reckoning accounts for the apparent difference between the execution date and the feast.] His body lies in the unmarked mass grave at Tesnitsky forest with the others shot there; because of this his relics were not among those uncovered at Optina in 1998 (see Glorification and Veneration).

St. Isaac II is venerated as a hieromartyr (svyashchennomuchenik) — a priest-monk put to death for the faith — and his feast is kept on 26 December (the Optina record and the Synaxis of the Elders). He is the only one of the fourteen Optina elders to have died by execution, and with him the office of superior of Optina, held in unbroken succession from the founding abbots, was extinguished until the monastery’s revival (Kontzevitch, Optina Pustyn, 1970).

The Martyr-Abbot in the Line

Isaac II completes the arc of the Optina lineage in a fitting and terrible way. The line had begun with an abbot’s protection — St. Moses (Putilov) sheltering the first elders in the 1820s — and it ends with an abbot’s martyrdom, St. Isaac II shot in the forest a century later. Between the two abbots stretches the whole flowering and destruction of Optina eldership. Where St. Nikon the Confessor represents the eldership of souls carried into martyrdom, St. Isaac II represents the institution itself — the monastery and its headship — carried into martyrdom: he died not for a doctrine debated but simply for being what he was, the abbot of a monastery the state had resolved to destroy (Kontzevitch, Optina Pustyn, 1970; see The Hieromartyrs of Optina README). His glorification, with the whole synaxis, came in 1996 and 2000, and, appropriately, the general glorification of 2000 was made together with the great host of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, among whom he stands (see Glorification and Veneration and The New Martyrs of Russia).

See Also

References

  • Kontzevitch, I. M. Optina Pustyn’ i eyo vremya. Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1970. (Isaac Bobrikov as last superior of Optina; his governance through the suppression; his refusal to renounce his monasticism; his arrest and execution.)
  • “Isaac II (Bobrakov, the Younger) of Optina, archimandrite hieromartyr, venerable.” Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (Washington, DC), following the Optina record and the Soviet-era documentation — used to locate the entry to Optina (1884), the appointment as superior (1914), the arrest at Belev (16 December 1937), the condemnation (30 December 1937), and the execution in the Tesnitsky forest near Tula (8 January 1938).
  • The Synaxis of the Optina Elders and the Optina record — for the feast (26 December).