Basil Kholmogorov

Holy Hieromartyr Basil Kholmogorov, a priest, was born on 25 January 1875 in the village of Andreevskoe, Kolomna district, Moscow province, in the family of the priest John Vasilievich Kholmogorov. He studied at the theological school in Kolomna and in 1894 finished the Moscow seminary. In 1895 he was appointed psalm-⁠reader at the Dormition cathedral in Dmitrov, and in 1903 he was ordained priest for the Dormition church in the village of Morozovo. On 22 June 1911 he was sent to the church of Saint Nicholas in the village of Poltevo, where he was head and religion teacher of the parish school until it was abolished. In 1921 he received the pectoral cross and soon was made archpriest.

After the authorities closed the church of Saint Nicholas, in the mid-1930s, he began to serve at the Transfiguration church in the village of Ostrov. His first service was on the feast of the Transfiguration in 1937. The white-⁠stone church, from the second half of the sixteenth century, was an architectural monument, but in the years of persecution it had fallen into a sorry state, because the authorities opposed restoring even a church in use. On 25 November 1937 the NKVD questioned witnesses who said that the priest had complained that the church was left neglected and that no repair materials could be found.

On 26 November 1937 Father Basil was arrested, held in Taganka prison and interrogated two days later. He answered firmly that he had not carried on counter-⁠revolutionary agitation and did not admit guilt. On 1 December 1937 the troika of the NKVD of Moscow region sentenced him to ten years in a camp. On 9 January 1938 he arrived at Siblag, in Novosibirsk region, but stayed there a short time. Archpriest Basil Kholmogorov passed to the Lord on 16 January 1938, in the Suslovo section of Siblag, and was buried in an unknown grave.

He is commemorated on 16 January, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, on 29 August (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kuzbass, and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, all in the new style.