In 1917, he was appointed as Hermogenes, Bishop of Tobolsk and Siberia (Russian: священномученик Гермоген, епископ Тобольский и Сибирский).

[5] In 1905, Hermogenes, probably the most widely respected figure in the Russian Orthodox Church,[6] became a friend of Grigori Rasputin from the time he arrived in the capital.

[7] Rasputin stayed at Alexander Nevsky Lavra; there he met with Hermogenes and Theophanes of Poltava, who were amazed with his psychological perspicacity.

Hermogenes started rumours that Rasputin had joined the Khlysty, an obscure Christian sect with strong Siberian roots.

In of June 1918, the bishop and several other prisoners (the priest of the village of Kamenskoye of the Yekaterinburg diocese, Pyotr Karelin, the former gendarme non-commissioned officer Nikolai Knyazev, the gymnasium student Mstislav Golubev, the former police chief of Yekaterinburg Genrikh Rushinsky and the officer Ershov) were taken to Tyumen and Ershov.

On the way, the priests were drowned on orders of the Baltic sailor and Bolshevik leader Pavel Khokhryakov in the Tura River,[13] not far from the birthplace of his nemesis Rasputin.