Jacob (Maskaev) is a saint of the Eastern Orthodox Church (1878 - 1937). Jacob (Maskaev)'s feast day is celebrated on 29 July.
Unknown authorUnknown author
License: Public domain
Jacob (Maskaev)
Saint- Life Span
- 1878 - 1937 (age 59)
- Feast Day
- 29 July
- Gender
- male
- Church
- Eastern Orthodox
Places
Roles & Family
Canonization
Biography
Jacob (Maskaev), born Yakov Ivanovich Maskaev, was a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church and one of the New Martyrs of the Soviet era. He was born on 13 October 1878 in the village of Unzha, Makaryevsky uyezd, Kostroma Governorate, in the Russian Empire, the son of a peasant family. After elementary education and military service he married in 1901 and was ordained deacon and priest in 1902. He then served for some twenty years as a parish priest in the Orenburg diocese, ministering in the southern Urals during the last decades of the imperial regime, the First World War, and the revolutions of 1917.
In 1923 Maskaev received monastic tonsure with the name Jacob and was consecrated Bishop of Kurgan, a vicar bishop in the Yekaterinburg diocese. His episcopal service took place against the background of the Soviet state's assault on the Church and of internal Orthodox divisions, including the Renovationist movement. He subsequently served as Bishop of Orenburg and in other Urals assignments. Like many bishops loyal to the Patriarchal Church he was arrested more than once during the 1920s, suffering imprisonment and administrative exile.
In 1935 he was named Archbishop of Barnaul, overseeing Orthodox parishes in the Altai region of western Siberia. During the mass operations of 1937 he was arrested in June of that year. An NKVD troika condemned him, and on 29 July 1937 he was executed by firing squad in Barnaul. His place of burial has not been identified.
The Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, meeting in August 2000, glorified Archbishop Jacob as a hieromartyr among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. He is commemorated on 29 July (16 July on the Julian calendar), the date of his death, and together with the general synaxis of the New Martyrs. His life belongs to the large company of former parish priests who, after marriage and long pastoral work, were raised to the episcopate in the 1920s and perished in the Great Terror of 1937–1938, especially in Siberia and the Urals.