Andrew Yasenev

Holy Hieromartyr Andrew Yasenev, a protopriest, was born on 12 August 1868 in the village of Yasenok, Ryazan province, in the family of the deacon John Yasenev. He was shot on 7 March 1938 at Butovo, near Moscow. The Russian Church honours him among the New Martyrs of Moscow.

In 1889 he finished the Ryazan seminary and was ordained deacon, and in 1891 priest for the seminary church of Ryazan, while also managing the seminary's household. In 1913 he was appointed to the Dormition Cathedral in the city of Yegoryevsk, as head of the Vishnevo parish school and teacher of religion at the parish schools and the girls' and boys' schools of Yegoryevsk. He was raised to protopriest, rector of the church of Saint Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow, and dean of the churches of the Yegoryevsk district. For his many years of flawless service he received in 1929 the mitre and the right to serve the liturgy with the royal doors open until the Cherubic Hymn.

At the end of 1936 a neighbour of Father Andrew, an NKVD informer, reported that after the elections of December 1936 to the Supreme Soviet he had heard him say that he had gone to vote, but to no avail, that the communists would elect whom they wished anyway, that the persecution would go on, that the Soviet authorities did no good by persecuting the clergy and that the people had remained faithful to the Orthodox Church. In November 1937 witnesses were heard, among them a psalm-⁠reader who had served at the cathedral and who said that in January 1937 he had gone with the protopriest to serve molebens around the parish, where people asked why he, as dean, had given up the cathedral; Father Andrew answered that he had not given it up, since he could neither give it nor not give it, having no vote. Other witnesses said that he had gathered in the deanery clergy who had been in prison and had grouped a choir of nuns, many of them exiled for anti-⁠Soviet activity.

On 23 January 1938 the protopriest was arrested and imprisoned at Yegoryevsk. Asked by the investigator why clergy and other people gathered at his home, he said that priests and others came to him on church business, since he was dean of the district, and believers with requests for services. Asked why he grouped priests earlier convicted of anti-⁠Soviet activity, he said he had not grouped them on purpose; they had come to the district with the bishop's blessing. To the last question, whether he had founded a counter-⁠revolutionary organisation, he answered: "I founded no counter-⁠revolutionary organisation and did no counter-⁠revolutionary work." On 27 February 1938 the NKVD troika sentenced him to death. Protopriest Andrew Yasenev was shot on 7 March 1938 and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo firing range. He is commemorated on 7 March, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, on 23 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of Ryazan and in the Synaxis of the Moscow Saints.