Agatha Krapivnikova

Saint Agatha Krapivnikova (1890 to 1937), Venerable Martyr, was a novice at a convent in the Tambov province, then a watchwoman at a church in Kazakhstan, and was shot in 1937. She is commemorated on 7 February, with the synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church. She was numbered among the saints, the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, at the Jubilee Bishops' Council of 2000, for veneration throughout the Church.

She was born in 1890 in the village of Novosofyino in the Shatsk district of the Tambov province, into the family of the peasant Aviv Krapivnikov. She finished the village school and, at twenty-⁠one, resolved to enter a convent. Nearby, by the village of Staroe Chernaevo, a convent was about to be founded on the site of an ancient monastery established about 1573 by the hieromonk Matthew, one of the first enlighteners of that region, once inhabited by pagans. By the beginning of the twentieth century the place had fallen into desolation, and the church authorities decided to open a convent there, which was done in 1912. Its first abbess was the nun Magdalina; later, in 1924, the nun Valentina (Tsyganova) became abbess, though she had in fact run the convent almost from its founding because of Magdalina's age and illness.

The convent at Chernaevo

Valentina was born in 1856 in Serpukhov into a merchant family. At twenty-⁠two she entered the convent at Kashira, where she struggled twenty-⁠two years, then the convent at Morshansk, where she stayed twelve years, and in 1912 she was transferred to the newly founded convent at Chernaevo. The number of nuns and novices soon grew, and spiritual life flourished. Many peasant girls came gladly to the convent; accustomed to field work from childhood, they were not afraid of agricultural labour. They did not wait for benefactors from outside, but placed their hope in God alone and in two means, prayer and work.

The persecution

In 1918 a peasant uprising against the Bolsheviks broke out in the Shatsk district, and the convent gave the rebels help with food and medical care. The uprising was crushed, and a punitive detachment came to the convent walls. The gates were shut, and one nun rang the alarm bell and gathered the peasants. The punishers fired at the belfry; the ringing nun was wounded, the bell fell silent, and the soldiers were let in. Abbess Valentina, however, kept perfect calm: she invited the soldiers into the convent refectory, fed them and gave them tea, and they left in a fairly good mood. Later the godless authorities tried several times to close the convent, but the abbess had great authority among the local officials and the peasants, as a person of spotless life and wide charity to the poor peasants, many of whom, since before the revolution, preferred to work at the convent rather than on their own plots. The convent was closed only in 1928, when all the nuns were driven out. They did not leave the place of their labours but settled in the nearby villages: Borki, Novosofyino, Novochernaevo, Vysokoe and Pechino.

Arrest and martyrdom

Agatha entered the convent at its very founding; the convent needed literate agronomists, and the abbess sent her to an agricultural school in Ryazan, where she studied a year and a half, and then she carried out her obedience in the farm work. After the convent was closed she settled in her native village of Novosofyino. On 31 May 1931 Abbess Valentina, then seventy-⁠five, was arrested with the nuns of the convent, among them the novice Agatha. Sixteen people were arrested and all were taken to the Ryazan prison. At the interrogation the novice Agatha said: "I entered the convent at Staroe Chernaevo of my own will, from religious conviction... I believe in God, for I know that God is and will be forever; let them shoot, I will not renounce God... I carried on no agitation against the authorities, nor against the collective farms, for I know that every authority is from God and must be obeyed... Christ Himself suffered for us, and we must too."

On 20 August 1931 the OGPU troika sentenced Abbess Valentina, the novice Agatha and all the arrested nuns to three years of exile in Kazakhstan. After the exile Agatha stayed on at Pavlodar and worked as a watchwoman at the church of the Resurrection. On 25 September 1937 she was arrested, accused of taking part in a counter-⁠revolutionary organization. Answering the investigator, she said: "I worked as a watchwoman at the church, I had a lot of work and no time to hold conversations with anyone. I know nothing of any counter-⁠revolutionary organization." On 22 October she was condemned to death and soon shot.