Basil Guryev

Saint Basil Guryev, hieromartyr, was a priest (from 1916 archpriest) of the church of the icon of the Mother of God "of the Sign" in Kuntsevo, in Moscow, born in 1869 and shot at the Butovo firing range on 13 October 1937. He is commemorated on 30 September by the old calendar, which is 13 October by the new.

He was the son of the Orthodox spiritual writer, Archpriest Viktor Guryev (1842 to 1912), and the younger brother of the state councillor Pyotr Guryev, manager of the chancellery of the Holy Synod.

In 1929 he was arrested and sentenced to a year and a half of imprisonment, but the next court changed the sentence to a fine of three hundred rubles. In 1932 the church of the Sign, where he had served in the last years, was closed, and the priest went to serve at the church of the Savior Not Made by Hands on the Setun, where he served until his last arrest.

He was arrested on 21 September 1937 and held first in the Kuntsevo district branch of the NKVD, then moved to Taganka prison in Moscow. The NKVD troika sentenced him to death, on the charge of belonging to a counter-⁠revolutionary church terrorist group. He did not admit guilt of counter-⁠revolutionary activity and rejected all the false charges brought against him. He was shot and buried on 13 October 1937, at the Butovo firing range, in an unknown grave.