Our Home is in Heaven – The Fiery Missionary Priest and Martyr Daniel Sysoev (+2009)

September 25, 2026, a martyric death comes not only at the moment of death but is born from the whole will of man.” This saying, sometimes attributed to St. John Chrysostom, reveals a profound truth that relates to the life of the contemporary Russian priest and martyr, Fr. Daniel Sysoev. Fr. Daniel was not merely an unfortunate victim of circumstances that ended in his murder. Rather, his whole life and orientation was characterized by a burning love for Christ, for the Truth, and for bringing as many others as was possible into this holy and “consuming fire” (Exod. 24:17; Deut. 4:24, 9:3; Heb. 12:29).

In the Lives and Sayings of the Desert Fathers, we read the following:

Abba Lot went to Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands toward heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”

As was the case for St. Paul—Fr. Daniel’s favored example of piety—his fuel was a yearning for Christ and for the heavenly Jerusalem, “whether by life or by death” (Phil. 1:20). Death did not “take” Fr. Daniel by surprise, rather he lived in a way that was already overcoming its power (cf. John 5:24). His martyric death was preceded by a martyric life. As the monastic saying goes, “If we die before we die, when we die we will not die.”

Fr. Daniel was like a fiery comet, burning and flying through the atmosphere with urgency, in haste to bring himself and others into the fullness of life found in the Church, “the fulness of Him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23). And so, before his martyrdom at age 35 should not surprise us: “When they kill me, don’t cry for me, but pray for me.”

His Youth

Daniel Sysoev was born in Moscow in 1974, the oldest son of a Russian, Alexei Nikolaevich Sysoyev, and Anna Midhatovna Amirova, a Tartar. Both were artists. The theme of burning for God began early. Daniel was baptized in 1977 at the age of three,1 together with his parents, only after grave illness threatened his life. (His parents had delayed his baptism due to the threats issued by his grandmother, a devoted communist.) As the newly illumined was led around the baptismal font, he saw a man in a fiery garment standing near the baptismal waters. Only the young Daniel saw this angel, an experience he spoke about often later in life.

According to his mother, Fr. Daniel grew up a very weak boy, and was near death three times, showing none of the energetic, fighting nature he later had as a priest. He was a very bookish person, always reading, which led to him needing glasses.

From his early years, Daniel dreamed of becoming a priest. Often, instead of playing games he played at preaching sermons. When his father became an acolyte in a church outside of Moscow, he began both assisting in the altar and singing in the choir, in addition to reading, listening to the lives of saints, and painting. But this proclivity was not in line with the atheistic system of education.

Once, when Daniel was at home sick, his teachers visited him. They were shocked and outraged to see icons and Christian books in his room. When he returned to school, one of his teachers sat him in the midst of the class and began mocking him, asking, “Do you believe in God and do you know any prayers?” His fellow students, formed by communism, burst into laughter and joined in on the taunting. Some mentioned how the Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin had been to space and had not seen God. The seven-year-old Daniel, paused briefly, and stated firmly: “Yes, I believe in God, and I know many prayers by heart.” This became the first of many occasions on which he boldly confessed his faith. In the aftermath, his teachers began to publicly pressure him to read atheistic books.

Nothing could dissuade Daniel from his “first love” (Rev. 2:4) and his desire to serve his Lord, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” ( Jn. 14:6). Already married, he entered the Moscow Theological Seminary in 1991. To make ends meet he helped pay his way by tutoring less gifted students. According to fellow students, because he was so well read in Orthodoxy he sometimes didn’t pay attention to the lectures of his professors but read books under his desk.

1995, not long before his graduation from seminary. He was assigned to the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Yasenevo, Moscow, and began his missionary activity in earnest the following year, beginning a weekly Bible study with explanations from the Holy Fathers on the Old and New Testaments. These teachings would continue to the time of his death.

From the start the zealous deacon’s teaching was geared to reach the non-Orthodox as well as baptized Orthodox Christians weakened in their faith. It was at this time that he was blessed by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II to teach missionary Bible classes at the Krutitsy Patriarchal Metochian, designed to help people who had been influenced by various sects and the occult.

In January 2001, the future martyr was ordained to the holy priesthood in 2001 by Patriarch Alexy. During this period, he also taught liturgics and missiology (missions) at the Theological Seminary at St. Nicholas Monastery of Pererva. In 2003 Fr. Daniel established a mission parish in an area of Moscow consisting primarily of non-Orthodox. By 2006 a small temporary wooden church dedicated to the Apostle Thomas had been erected. Plans for a more permanent temple named after his patron St. Daniel would not come to fruition.

Fr. Daniel had a great love and reverence for the divine services of the Church, which energized and reinforced his evangelistic efforts. He preached, not only at Divine Liturgy, but at every service. A gifted speaker, his sermons were direct, bold and compelling, moving and challenging to the heart of the listener. His preaching was inspired by his love and sense of urgency to reach Christ’s lost sheep. This zeal to reach lost and searching souls led Fr. Daniel to craft an educational course—12 three-hour teachings— to train “street missionaries” who would foster dialogue about the Faith in the public square. This ministry reached not only Protestants, but atheists, satanists, and “skinheads.”

In addition to his street evangelism, Fr. Daniel would participate in public discussions with various sectarian and pagan groups and was invited on many television and radio shows. He had a special fervor for reaching hearts among those of the Islamic faith. To this end, he attended Muslim festivals where he would distribute pamphlets he himself wrote. He was also invited to public dialogue with Islamic groups. From 2007–2009, Fr. Daniel took missionary trips to Muslim-dominated regions, such as the Republic of Tatarstan and the country of Kyrgyzstan. His efforts bore fruit, as he personally baptized more than 80 former Muslims into the bosom of the Orthodox Church.

Martyrdom

Fr. Daniel’s activities, along with his unapologetic and enthusiastic presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, made him a target of harsh criticism and eventually drew the ire of some more extreme societal elements. He received at least 14 death threats before his life was actually taken.

On November 19, 2009, Fr. Daniel celebrated the Divine Liturgy, baptized a child, and received back into the Church an Orthodox Christian who had fallen into occultism. That evening he held his Bible teaching and answered questions into the night. Finally, when almost everyone had left, he went into the altar to hear a confession.

It was then that a man burst into St. Thomas church, wearing a surgical mask, holding a gun, and demanding to see “Sysoev.” Part of a North Caucasus Islamic extremist group, he had vowed to “execute the damned Sysoev.” The man began shooting, wounding but not killing the choir director who remained in the nave. At that moment, Fr. Daniel came out of the altar and fearlessly walked toward the assailant, who shot the priest and ran out of the temple. The new martyr, married with three daughters, died a few hours later at 35 years of age.

Fr. Daniel’s funeral took place at Sts. Peter and Paul Church, Yasenevo, his first parish, on Monday, November 23, with 200 priests and deacons and hundreds of Orthodox believers in attendance. His Holiness Patriarch Kyrill served the memorial and gave the eulogy for the martyred priest and now canonized saint, Daniel. He was laid to rest in the cemetery behind the Church of the Icon of the Savior Not-Made-By-Hands in Moscow. Providentially, his 40-day memorial fell on December 30, the feast of his heavenly patron, the Holy Prophet Daniel. Many non-Orthodox continue to find the Faith through his books and recorded talks.2

Spiritual Life and Teachings3

We have already noted the martyr’s love for and devotion to the liturgical services. This devotion to the corporate worship of the Church was enhanced by his own personal ascetic life. As attested by one of his parishioners, on fast days he would abstain from food until 3pm. During Great Lent, he would read the entire Bible. And he was intimately familiar with the writings of the Holy Fathers, the lives of the saints, the Church canons and her hymnography.

Fr. Daniel’s asceticism was not fueled by a desire to fulfill external rules but by a real sacrificial love for God and for people, for whom he desired salvation. He taught that we should never identify a person by their sin, but separate the person from their sin. We also receive this benefit and grace through Holy Confession and repentance.

He emphasized that we are to love all people, but not the delusions with which they might be infected. He often taught: “We love people as the image of God, despite their evil, not together with it.” For example, we must love murderers but not their evil acts. We must discern but not condemn.

Fr. Daniel viewed this life from the perspective of the world to come, which has been inaugurated here and now by God through Christ in the Church. This orientation was reinforced by his own personal experience. Around the time of the fall of communism, he underwent a clinical death. At that moment he saw his soul leave his body and an angel commanded him to return again to his body.

Commenting on Ecclesiastes 2:17, he said, “the people who bind their lives to this world are foolish. Man’s place is not here! … Do you see? It’s not bad for a fish in the water, but it’s bad for man on Earth. Why? Because his homeland is not here.”

Fr. Daniel used a Greek patristic term, a compound word, to drive home his point: uranopolitan (uranos meaning heaven, and polis, city). Orthodox Christians are to be uranopolitans, citizens of heaven, the new Jerusalem. We are “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Heb. 11:13). For this reason, he preached against Orthodox nationalism and nationalism in general. The Church is the true “nation” which belongs to all ethnicities and peoples. Therefore, Fr. Daniel believed, any Orthodox Christian who opposes the need for evangelism shows a “disregard for the judgment of God” by not “rendering help to the perishing.” He believed every Orthodox community should produce missionaries out of a sense of love for their neighbor.

Legacy and Reach

Although Fr. Daniel Sysoev has not been formally glorified as a saint by the Holy Synod of the Russian Church, he is venerated in Russia and around the world. The following testimony is taken from an article written by the Monk (now Hieromonk) Madai (Maamdi), a graduate of Fr. Daniel’s missionary course and the first ethnic Kurd ordained as an Orthodox priest:4

I am amazed that although no one specially “promotes” the veneration of Fr. Daniel, it has nevertheless spread very broadly even to countries far from Russia. His first icon was painted in Macedonia at the request of Bishop David of Stobi; in Serbia a missionary center was founded in Fr. Daniel’s name; in the USA an icon has been painted and there is even an initiative to build a church dedicated to him. In Romania an Akathist has been written. In Georgia monks have translated almost all of his books. In Greece, in the monastery of the Annunciation of the Mother of God in Ormylia (one of the largest Orthodox monasteries in the world), founded by the great Athonite elder Emilianos (Vathidis), they pray to Fr. Daniel as to a saint, and say, “It is time for you to pray not for Fr. Daniel but to him.”

According to the hieromonk, due to missionaries influenced by Fr. Daniel, Orthodox Christianity is set to become the dominant faith among the Kurds.

Like a flaming comet shooting through the darkness, the holy martyr Daniel Sysoev gave himself completely as a living sacrifice to God. Even as a six-year-old boy, his sights were set very high. When asked if he would like to be a married priest or a monk, he answered, “No, neither. Patriarch!”

Single-minded and fully focused on “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42), he burned with faith and love in order to bring the light of Christ into an increasingly dark and confused world. And now that light shines through him upon us by his example and intercessions. And indeed, he reached a height even greater than Patriarch. For in his last book he wrote: “The best end, which only a Christian can imagine, is a martyric death.”

Source: The Word Magazine