Episcopate Under Persecution
Herman's tenure as a bishop coincided almost entirely with the Soviet campaign against the Church, and he spent the great majority of it under arrest or in exile rather than in the governance of a diocese. After his consecration as Bishop of Volokolamsk in 1919 and his later appointment to Vyazniki in 1928, repeated sentences carried him from Butyrka prison in Moscow to exile in western Siberia, Central Asia, the Solovki camps, and the settlements of the far north.
Sources describe his last years, in and around Syktyvkar in the Komi region, as a period when he was largely deprived of any possibility of celebrating the services or receiving the sacraments. His repeated transfers under guard and the conditions of his confinement are presented by his hagiographers as the road that led to his martyrdom.