Andrew Dobrynin

Holy Hieromartyr Andrew Dobrynin, a protopriest, was born on 10 August 1874 in the village of Rozhdestveno-⁠Prozorovo, in the Mologa district of the Yaroslavl province, in the family of the church servant Nicholas Dobrynin. He was shot on 21 February 1938. The Russian Church honours him among the New Martyrs and Confessors.

He finished the seminary in Yaroslavl, was ordained priest and served afterwards at the church in the village of Prechistoe-⁠Naumovo, in the Danilov district. He was raised to protopriest and appointed dean of the Danilov deanery. In November 1937 the priests of the Danilov deanery were arrested, and during the investigation some of them signed records in which Protopriest Andrew Dobrynin was portrayed as the inspirer and leader of a counter-⁠revolutionary insurgent group. On 21 January 1938 the priest Vsevolod Derzhavin, under investigation, wrote a statement saying that he had been recruited into the group on 12 March 1937 by Protopriest Andrew, who had recruited six more people. It was said that the protopriest had opposed the measures of the authorities at the taking of the bells from the church's bell tower in 1936 and that he held vigils in which he said that the slogan of making the collective farms Bolshevik and the collective farmers prosperous could not be realised.

On 28 January 1938 he was arrested and imprisoned at Danilov. On 10 February the NKVD troika sentenced him to death; only after the sentence, on 17 February, was he questioned. He did not admit to belonging to any counter-⁠revolutionary group, rejected Derzhavin's statement, denied any attempt to hinder the taking of the bells and said he did not know how a woman from the village of Radovo had come to be locked in the church. He admitted only that he had held vigils and that he had told the priest Sofiysky that he was dissatisfied with the state of things, that life had become hard and that the church had no income. At the confrontation with the priest Sofiysky, who confirmed the false testimony, he said: "I confirm that in meeting Sofiysky I did express dissatisfaction with the present order and complained of my poor material position. The other facts Sofiysky stated I reject." Protopriest Andrew Dobrynin was shot on 21 February 1938 and buried in an unknown common grave. He is commemorated on 21 February, on 7 February and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl, on 5 June.