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Hieromartyr20th century

Hieromartyr Platon of Estonia and the New Martyrs of Estonia

1869 - 1919

Also known as Platon (Kulbusch), Bishop of Tallinn

The first Orthodox bishop of Estonia, shot by the Bolsheviks in Yuriev (Tartu) in 1919, commemorated with all the New Martyrs of Estonia.

January 14New Calendar
Feast Day
January 27Old Calendar
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Commemorated as

The Holy Hieromartyr Platon, Bishop of Tallinn

Life

Platon (Kulbusch), Bishop of Tallinn, was the first Orthodox bishop of Estonian ethnicity and a hieromartyr of the twentieth century, executed by the Bolsheviks in 1919. He is commemorated on January 14 together with the New Martyrs of Estonia, and is numbered among the Synaxis of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

He was born Paul Kulbusch on July 13, 1869 (old style), at Pootsi in Parnu county, in present-day Estonia, and received the name Paul at his baptism. He graduated in 1894 from the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy and served as a priest at the Estonian Orthodox parish of Saint Isidore in Saint Petersburg.

In 1917 a council at Riga elected him bishop of Reval, the city now called Tallinn, and he was consecrated Bishop Platon on December 31, 1917.

Contributions & Legacy

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Martyrdom and Glorification

During the fighting that followed the Soviet advance into Estonia, Platon fell ill with pneumonia while at Tartu, the city formerly known as Yuriev. After the city was taken he was arrested in early January 1919. On January 14, 1919, in the killing remembered as the Tartu Credit Bank massacre, he was executed together with two other priests, Michael Bleive and Nikolai Bezhanitsky.

He was glorified as a martyr by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in 1982, and by the Moscow Patriarchate in the year 2000, when he was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia; the Patriarchate of Constantinople recognized the three martyred clergy in the same year.

Member ofReadHide
Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia
Synaxis
Companions2 figuresShowHide
Co-martyr: an Estonian priest executed together with Platon in the Tartu (Yuriev) massacre on January 14, 1919.
New Hieromartyr Michael Bleive
Co-martyr: a priest of Tartu executed together with Platon by the Bolsheviks on January 14, 1919.
New Hieromartyr Nikolai Bezhanitsky
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Sources: OCA Synaxarion (oca.org), Jan 14