Arephas Nasonov

Holy Hieromartyr Arephas Nasonov was a priest of the Russian Church. He was born on 24 October 1888 in the village of Dolzhik, Zhytomyr district, Volhynia province, and was shot on 10 January 1938 at the Butovo firing range near Moscow. He was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, for veneration throughout the Church. His commemoration is on 28 December (10 January by the new calendar) and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

On 1 August 1914 he was ordained priest at the church in the village of Dolzhik, Pulin volost. He carried on missionary work with success and brought many Old Believers to Orthodoxy. For this he was especially esteemed by Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who administered the diocese of Volhynia. In 1931 and 1932 he served at the church of Saints Joachim and Anna in Mozhaisk. On 3 September 1932 he was arrested and the next day held in the Butyrka isolator. He was accused of anti-⁠Soviet agitation and did not admit guilt. On 11 September 1932 the three-⁠man tribunal of the political police sentenced him to three years of exile in Kazakhstan. After eight months he fled from exile, to the Penza region.

He was arrested again on 19 December 1937, on a charge of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation and of fleeing from the place of serving his sentence. At the interrogation he was told that he was arrested and accused of having carried on among the people anti-⁠Soviet agitation directed against Soviet power, and he answered that he had carried on no agitation among the people. Asked whether he admitted guilt, he answered that he did not admit guilt. The three-⁠man tribunal of the political police for the Moscow region, by its decision of 31 December 1937, sentenced Father Arephas to death, under article 58, points 10 and 11, for counter-⁠revolutionary agitation and agitation against the elections to the Supreme Soviet. He was shot on 10 January 1938 and buried in a nameless common grave.

He was rehabilitated in 1990 for the case of 1932 (prosecutor's office of the Moscow region) and on 15 February 1991 for the case of 1937 (prosecutor's office of the Ryazan region). He was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia by decision of the Holy Synod of 26 December 2001; the source, however, gives as the date of canonization 26 March 2001, which does not agree.