Anthony Bystrov

Holy Hieromartyr Anthony Bystrov (in the world Nikolai Mikhailovich Bystrov) was born on 11 October 1858 in the village of Nyuba, in the Vologda province, and died in prison on 16 July 1932, at Arkhangelsk. He was Archbishop of Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory in the years of persecution against the Church. The Russian Orthodox Church numbered him among the saints in 2006, in the synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia. Our calendar commemorates him on 10 June.

Family, priesthood and monastic life

He was the son of Priest Mikhail Ivanovich Bystrov of the church of Saint Nicholas at Nyuba. In 1879 he finished the theological seminary in Vologda. From youth he wished to be a monk, but at his parents' request he married and served three years as a psalm-⁠reader in the diocese of Vologda. In January 1882 he was appointed rector of the Nativity church at Stepurino, in the Gryazovets district, and on 2 February was ordained priest for it. In the same year a daughter, Maria, was born to him, and his wife died soon afterwards.

On 7 February 1888 he was tonsured a monk, with the name Anthony, at the Vladimir Zaonikiev hermitage in the Vologda province. He was appointed head of the Lopotov (Grigoriev-⁠Pelshema) monastery and from 1889 its abbot, and from 1890 abbot of the Kornilyev-⁠Komel monastery. He received the rank of hegumen in 1892 and of archimandrite in 1906. In 1907 he became abbot of the Holy Spirit monastery in Vologda. His contemporaries describe him as an expert in church order, who served with reverence and himself performed the akathists appointed for the week, and as one of the enlightened guides of monastics.

Bishop

On 17 January 1910 he was consecrated Bishop of Velsk, vicar of the diocese of Vologda, in the Trinity cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, by Metropolitans Anthony (Vadkovsky) of Saint Petersburg, Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky) of Moscow and Flavian (Gorodetsky) of Kyiv, with other hierarchs. From March 1921 he was Bishop of Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory. On 27 December 1922 he was exiled for three years to the Narym territory, and at the beginning of 1926 he returned to Arkhangelsk and gave much care to the exiled clergy. On 7 October 1926 he was arrested but soon released. In 1927 his daughter Maria was arrested. In 1929 he was raised to archbishop and given charge of the dioceses of the North: Arkhangelsk, Vologda, North Dvina and the Komi region.

Prison and death

On 23 January 1931 he was arrested, on the charge of supporting counter-⁠revolutionary clergy, together with twenty others, among them the exiled bishops Averky (Kedrov), Tikhon (Sharapov) and Innocent (Tikhonov). He was accused of sheltering and helping the clergy exiled to the North and of allowing a church choir that many of them joined.

He was placed in the city prison, in a cell with seven common criminals, who, contrary to what his persecutors expected, treated him with respect. One gave up his bed, since there were only three beds for eight men. The archbishop had a Gospel with him and read it to his cellmates, explaining what he read, and many of them heard of Christ the Saviour and His commandments for the first time. He refused to admit guilt and rejected an offer to become an informer. He was then moved to another cell, in harsh conditions, fell ill with dysentery and died in the prison hospital. It is told that, in the short moment when consciousness returned to him before death, he read the prayers for the departing soul over himself.

He died on 16 July 1932 and was buried in the Ilyinsky cemetery at Arkhangelsk.

Canonization

Archbishop Anthony's name was put on a preliminary list of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia, prepared for the canonization made by the Russian Church Outside Russia in 1981, but that canonization was not by name, and the list was published only at the end of the 1990s. The diocesan canonization commission judged that he was worthy to be numbered among the saints, because at an advanced age he bore every hardship with courage and died a martyr in prison, without staining or disgracing himself either at the investigation or in jail. On 26 December 2006 the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church decided to enter his name in the synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia of the twentieth century.