Basil Nikitsky

Holy Hieromartyr Basil Nikitsky was a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, born in 1889 in the Moscow region and shot on 14 March 1938 at the Butovo firing range. He was canonized by decision of the Holy Synod of 27 December 2000, for veneration throughout the Church. He is commemorated on 1 (14) March, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

He was born into the family of the psalm-⁠reader Pyotr Nikitsky and his wife, Ekaterina; there were nine children in the family. He graduated from the theological school of Volokolamsk. In 1913 he finished the Bethany seminary, after which he took a post as teacher at the school attached to the Pavlovsky Posad factory, Bogorodsk district. Soon he married a priest's daughter, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Nechaeva, who was a teacher at the same school. He was ordained priest for the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the village of Poreche, Mozhaisk district.

He was first arrested on 4 September 1929, accused of anti-⁠Soviet agitation, and imprisoned at Butyrka in Moscow. At the interrogation of 7 September he answered that he had not used his position as priest for anti-⁠Soviet agitation and that he had never said anything anti-⁠Soviet among the peasants or the believers of the parish. On 18 November he was sentenced by the Special Conference attached to the OGPU Collegium, under Article 58-10, to three years' imprisonment; in prison he worked at a timber enterprise. After his return in 1932 he again served at Poreche, then was transferred to the church in the village of Ilinskoe, Volokolamsk district. In 1934 he was sent to serve at a church in the Taldom district.

He was arrested a second time on 26 February 1938 and imprisoned at Volokolamsk. At the interrogation of 2 March he was asked about counter-⁠revolutionary activity in the village of Teryaevo; he denied any counter-⁠revolutionary or anti-⁠Soviet activity. It was put to him that on 3 February, standing in a queue for galoshes, he had expressed discontent with the Soviet power; he answered that he had stood in the queue for galoshes, but had made no counter-⁠revolutionary statements. Of the visitors to his house he said that they were the deacon of the church at Spirovo, a citizen from the village of Valuyki and the former churchwarden Maria Boldina, whom he had met at the Patriarchate in Moscow, and who had invited him to serve at Teryaevo; of the people who came for counsel he said nothing counter-⁠revolutionary. On 4 March 1938 the special troika of the NKVD sentenced him to death by shooting for active counter-⁠revolutionary agitation and sharp anti-⁠Soviet propaganda. He was shot on 14 March 1938 and buried in the unknown common grave at Butovo.