Anatoly Botvinnikov

Holy Venerable Martyr Anatoly Botvinnikov, a hieromonk, was born on 15 October 1881 in the village of Kopani, in the Bykhov district of the Mogilev province, in a peasant family. He was shot on 13 November 1937. The Russian Church honours him among the New Martyrs and Confessors.

In the world he was called Anatoly Ivanovich Botvinnikov. When he was fifteen his father died, and his mother went with him to the Tobolsk province, where they received land and set up a household, and Anatoly worked the land. The Russo-⁠Japanese War broke out and he was called up as a private. He came to Port Arthur, was wounded and taken prisoner, where he stayed about a year; the wound left lifelong effects, his arm and back having limited movement. After peace he was released and returned home. He had never thought of serving the Church, but the war, the nearness of death, the wound and life in captivity among pagans overturned the young man's soul, bringing to the fore the one thing needful, the salvation of his soul. Then he resolved: if he stayed alive, he would become a monk.

In April 1906 he entered a monastery in Siberia, where for several years he performed various obediences. In 1912 he was sent as an Orthodox missionary to China, and a year later he returned to Russia and entered the Nikolo-⁠Terebensky Monastery in the Tver province, where he received the monastic tonsure, keeping his name. In 1920 he was ordained hierodeacon. A year later the Soviet authorities abolished the monastery but left the church, where he went on serving. After some years he was ordained hieromonk and in 1928 sent to the church in the village of Sorogozhye, in the Mikhailov district of the Tver region, where the persecutions of the early thirties found him.

On 27 October 1930 Komsomol members at Sorogozhye gave testimony against the priest. The hieromonk answered at the interrogation of 18 November: "I do not admit guilt." The indictment of 1 December charged him with spreading "false rumours among the peasantry that the Soviet authorities were persecuting the Church and its servants", and on 10 December 1930 the OGPU troika sentenced him to three years in a camp. Those like Father Anatoly were never released early, in the hope that they would die in the camp; he survived, though ill from his wound, and in 1934 received the parish of the village of Dubrovskoe, in the Brusovo district. He served there three and a half years as zealously, preaching and giving spiritual guidance.

On 15 October 1937 he was arrested and the next day questioned. He said that he had carried on no counter-⁠revolutionary activity or anti-⁠Soviet agitation and did not admit guilt. The witnesses said only that he compared life before the revolution with the new one and did not support the state loans. He was held at Bezhetsk and on 11 November the NKVD troika decided he should be shot. Hieromonk Anatoly was shot on 13 November 1937. He is commemorated on 13 November, on 7 February and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tver, on 18 July.