New Hieromartyr Zachariah of Voronezh

Zachariah (Lobov) was a hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church who was martyred during the Soviet persecution of the Church. He is numbered among the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia and is commemorated on September 9.

By the accounts of his life, he was consecrated to the episcopate in 1923 with the blessing of Patriarch Tikhon. In the years that followed he took a leading part in opposing the renovationist schism, which had the support of the Soviet authorities, working in Southern Russia, parts of Ukraine, and along the Volga.

Arrested in 1924, he was sentenced to the prison camp on the Solovki islands, where, together with other imprisoned bishops, he is said to have shared in the composition of the so-called 'Address of Orthodox Bishops to the Government of the USSR.' In 1929 he was elevated to the rank of archbishop and assigned to the See of Voronezh, where he effectively oversaw dioceses of the central Black Earth Region, including the Voronezh, Tambov, Kursk, and Orel provinces.