Anatoly Berzhitsky

Holy Hieromartyr Anatoly Berzhitsky, a priest, was born on 3 July 1875 in the village of Mayaki, in the Odessa district of the Kherson province. He was shot on 19 November 1937 at Chimkent, in Kazakhstan. He was rehabilitated in 1957, and the Council of Bishops of 12 to 16 August 2000 opened his veneration throughout the whole Church.

His name was Anatoly Ananievich Berzhitsky and he came from a Russian priestly family; his brother also became a priest, and his nephews were officers of the White army and emigrated to Bulgaria. He received his first education at the law faculty of the University of Yuryev, which he finished in 1902; he also had spiritual training. It is known that he received ordination after 1917. The first time he was arrested was at Barnaul, on 20 July 1921, spent forty days in the town prison and was released. The second time he was arrested in 1930 and spent ten months. After release he went to Chimkent, in the South Kazakhstan region, where he worked as a planner at the health department in order to live.

The last time he was arrested was on 10 September 1937. He was accused that "in the investigation he concealed his spiritual rank and his link with his brother in Nikolaev, whose two sons are former White officers emigrated to Bulgaria", and that "he came to Chimkent specifically for counter-⁠revolutionary work among churchmen". The NKVD troika of the South Kazakhstan region sentenced him to the supreme penalty, and on 19 November 1937 the sentence was carried out. On 12 December 1957 the Military Tribunal of the Turkestan Military District rehabilitated him, for lack of a crime. He is commemorated on 19 November and on 7 February, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church.