Basil Arkhipov

Holy Martyr Basil Arkhipov, a psalm-⁠reader, is remembered together with the nuns Evdokia Arkhipova and Olga Zhiltsova. Evdokia was born in 1886 in the village of Goretovo in the Lukhovitsy district of Ryazan province, in the family of the peasant Sergei Arkhipov. In 1902 she entered as a novice the old Kazan Monastery in Ryazan, which then had more than three hundred and fifty nuns, and in 1909 she was clothed in the rassa. After the monastery was closed in 1919, she returned home to Goretovo and lived with her parents and nephews. In 1935 she was elected church warden. When the chairman of the village council announced that the church would be closed unless repaired, in 1936 a meeting of the church council resolved to collect money, and Evdokia urged those who came to buy candles and prosphora to give what they could. Four thousand rubles were gathered and the church was repaired. Olga was born in 1887 in Goretovo, in the family of the peasant Egor Zhiltsov. At eighteen she entered the Kazan Monastery in Ryazan as a novice, and after its closing she lived at home with her mother. When the threat of closing the church arose, she urged some believers to help with the repair.

Basil was born on 26 July 1876 in Goretovo, in the family of the peasant Maxim Arkhipov. He finished the parish school, served as a soldier in 1916-1917, then farmed and at collectivization joined the collective farm. He sang in the choir for years, and in 1937 became psalm-⁠reader. In the autumn of 1937 an NKVD agent came to Goretovo and asked the warden for the list of the priest, the psalm-⁠reader and the council members. Later a denunciation arrived about a "conspiratorial meeting of servants of the cult". On 15 February 1938 the warden Evdokia was arrested after a neighbour knocked at her door, and on 26 February Olga and Basil were arrested and held in Kolomna.

The investigator asked whether they reviled the collective farm, urged gifts for the church and did not subscribe to the loan. Evdokia said she had collected money only for repairing the church. Olga denied any agitation. Basil was reproached that, as psalm-⁠reader, he urged collective farmers to church, said that Soviet power was given as a punishment and spoke against the constitution. He denied it. A false witness, the secretary of the district Komsomol committee, said that on 22 November an illegal meeting of the "rabble of priests" had taken place in the nun Arkhipova's home. The investigation ended on 26 February 1938, and on 8 March an NKVD troika sentenced Evdokia, Olga and Basil to death. At Taganka a photographer photographed them on 13 March, so that they could be recognized at the execution. They were shot on 14 March 1938 and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo firing range.

Saint Basil is commemorated on 14 March, on 29 May (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, all in the new style.