The Holy Martyr Peter of Kazan

Commemorated on March 24

      The Holy Martyr Peter of Kazan together with the martyr Stephen suffered from the Kazan Tatars for his conversion to Christianity from Mussulmanism.
      After the leaving of the Russian army, the natives seized him by force from his home and addressed him by his former mussulman name, hoping that he would abjure from Christ. But to all the endearment and persuasion Saint Peter answered: "Father for me and mother – is God glorified in Trinity: Father and Son and Holy Spirit... If ye believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, then ye be kin to me; in holy Baptism the name Peter was given me, and not that, by which ye address me".
      Seeing that he would remain steadfast in the faith, his family gave him over to torture, during the time of which until his very death amidst fiercesome torments he did not cease to confess the Name of Christ, uttering: "I am a Christian". The holy martyr was buried in Kazan on the spot, where later was situated an ancient church of the Resurrection of Christ, at the Zhitny-Grain marketplace.
      About the holy martyrs Stephen and Peter of Kazan is account: "Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate", 1977, No. 9, p. 79-80.