Anthony Bystrov

Holy Hieromartyr Anthony Bystrov, archbishop of Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory (Nikolai Mikhailovich Bystrov, 1858 to 1931), was born on 11 October 1858 in the village of Nyuba, in the Solvychegodsk district of the Vologda province. He died in the prison hospital on 16 July 1931. The Russian Church honours him among the New Martyrs and Confessors.

Ministry

He finished the seminary at Vologda, married and in 1882 was ordained priest. Left a widower, in 1888 he received monastic tonsure with the name Anthony and continued his service in the monasteries of the Vologda diocese. On 17 January 1910 he was consecrated bishop of Velsk, vicar of the Vologda diocese. In March 1921 he became bishop of Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory, after Bishop Paul Pavlovsky, who had been imprisoned for a long term as one of the leaders of the Arkhangelsk "Union of Clergy and Laity". They were hard years. A schism had appeared in the Church. The civil war had choked in human blood. The Soviet authorities, overthrown in places, were establishing themselves again, including in the land of Arkhangelsk, by shooting the discontented, by concentration camps and forced-⁠labour camps. The hierarch's heart contracted with pain for the sufferers. Without hesitation he began to help those in the prisons. He organised something like a mutual aid fund for exiled and imprisoned clergy and monastics; those in need were given money and food, and each parish brought its mite. The faithful of the Arkhangelsk diocese warmly answered Patriarch Tikhon's call to help the starving; from churches and monasteries money orders began to come marked "for the starving of the Volga", not only in his name but in that of the Patriarch himself.

Exile

Only a few months after his accession to the see of Arkhangelsk, the hierarch was put on record by the authorities. On 27 December 1922 he was exiled for three years to the Narym region. He served the sentence in full, with no concession for his rank or his sixty-⁠seven years. At the beginning of 1926 he returned to his diocese and at once took up again the good work interrupted by exile. Nuns and faithful in the churches again began to collect money for the imprisoned, oil, grain, flour, clothes. His apartment became the place where clergy arriving in exile could receive money, food and clothing; from here parcels, letters and money orders were regularly sent to the camps. On 7 October 1926 he was arrested again, accused of having "led a counter-⁠revolutionary group of the Arkhangelsk clergy and laity, standing on the platform of disobedience to the Soviet authorities". After a time he was released, because "owing to his advanced age he cannot evade investigation and trial". On 4 February 1927 the Special Council of the OGPU Collegium decided to end the case, because many had interceded for the bishop. Soon he received from the Holy Synod the decree raising him to archbishop of the whole Northern Region, which, besides the Arkhangelsk province, also included Vologda, North Dvina and the autonomous region of Komi.

Last years

On 4 December 1930, on the feast of the Presentation of the Mother of God, a tea was held at which, together with the hierarch, the exiled bishops Innocent Tikhonov and Tikhon Sharapov, all the clergy of the church and all the exiled priests who had been at the service took part. The hierarch did not know that this would be the last festal meal of his life, like the Christmas and Theophany of that year. He was arrested on 23 January 1931. Poor food and glaring filth shook the hierarch's already weak health. On 16 July 1931 the doctor of the prison hospital recorded death. The cell was his last shelter. The body was buried in the Vologda cemetery and, after a time, moved to the Ilyinsky cemetery, with all the honours that in that hard time could be shown the beloved pastor. He is commemorated on 16 July, on 7 February, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda, on 11 July, and in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Arkhangelsk Metropolis, on 1 November.