Anatoly Barashkov

Holy Martyr Anatoly Barashkov, a peasant of the village of Gridino in the Kirillov district, was shot on 15 September 1918, near the Kirillo-⁠Belozersky Monastery, together with Holy Hieromartyr Barsanuphius, bishop of Kirillov, Holy Venerable Martyr Seraphima Sulimova, abbess of the Ferapontov Monastery, and the laymen Nikolai Burlakov, Mikhail Trubnikov and Philip Maryshev. The priest John Ivanov of Ferapontovo was shot a few days later, on 19 September. They are commemorated on 15 September, on 7 February and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda, on 11 July.

The condemned

Anatoly Andreevich Barashkov was born in 1870 in the village of Gridino, in the Ferapontov volost of the Kirillov district, in a peasant family, and himself worked the land. Nikolai Ignatievich Burlakov was born in 1889 at Kirillov and, before the Bolsheviks seized power, had been a member of the town Duma. Mikhail Dormidontovich Trubnikov was born in 1855; he was a retired captain of the second rank and, before the Bolshevik coup, had been a justice of the peace and head of the local zemstvo.

Bishop Barsanuphius (Vasily Pavlovich Lebedev) was born in 1871, in the family of a psalm-⁠reader, grew up in poverty and became bishop of Kirillov. Abbess Seraphima led the Ferapontov Monastery. In 1918 the authorities rose against monasteries and churches. The priest John Ivanov was arrested on 9 (22) May, and the faithful of twelve villages sent a petition for his release. Bishop Barsanuphius was arrested in September and, in the night before his martyrdom, prayed in prison; he said that he did not fear violent death but did not dare to believe that the Lord would find him worthy of martyrdom.

Martyrdom

On Sunday 15 September, at about five in the morning, the bishop, the abbess and the four laymen were led out of prison and taken toward Goritsy, escorted by twenty executioners. The bishop asked to go into the monastery to receive communion, but was refused. When he wanted to cross himself before an icon, a guard struck his hand with a rifle butt. They went along the old road from the time of Saint Cyril, on the shore of Lake Siverskoe, to a post that showed five versts to Goritsy and two to Kirillov, then were stopped and led to the right. "Here is our Golgotha," said the hierarch. When the abbess staggered, the bishop held her up: "Mother, take courage; we must go to death without fear, as to a wedding feast, with joy; the time will come when we will be envied." One of the condemned began to speak harshly of those who had judged them, but the hierarch stopped him: "After the example of the Saviour, we must forgive all; into the other life we must pass at peace with all." The abbess, who every evening asked the sisters' forgiveness, saying "Forgive me, the wretched", said it to the killers also, and they, thinking she called them wretched, fired and killed her. Five volleys followed, and the bishop went on standing and praying with raised hands, read the service for the departure of the soul and, at the end, said "amen". "I have finished, finish also," he said, blessed the monastery and was killed by a shot at close range. The grave was dug by merchants. The bodies were laid with great care in the pit: nearest the monastery the bishop, then Nikolai Burlakov, the abbess, and at the feet Anatoly Barashkov and Philip Maryshev.

The monks asked several times to take the bishop's body to the monastery, but each time were stopped. In the 1960s the authorities destroyed every sign of the grave and built farm buildings on the spot. On 17 December 1998 a cross was set up on the place of the execution.