Basil Pariysky

Holy Hieromartyr Basil Pariysky, a priest, was born on 28 July 1894, the day on which the Church commemorates Saint Vladimir, equal to the Apostles, baptized Basil, in a village of the Alexandrov district, Vladimir province, in the family of the psalm-⁠reader Basil Pariysky. In 1912 he finished the theological school in Pereslavl and entered the seminary in Vladimir, but completed only the first year and became psalm-⁠reader at the church of his native village. From 1919 to 1922 he was in the army, then again a psalm-⁠reader. He married Vera Ivanovna and they had three children. In 1925 he was ordained deacon for the church in Uspenskoe, Ivanovo region, and in 1928 priest for the church of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Titovskoe, Zagorsk district, where he served until 1936. In October 1936 he moved to the Dormition church in the village of Krasnoe, Kurovo district, where he served until his arrest in 1937.

Like all the clergy of the time, he and his family were deprived of electoral rights. In the time of collectivization they were put out of their house and their property taken. He was arrested on 27 November 1937 on a charge of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation and held at Taganka. The investigator told him it was known that he carried on systematic agitation among the villagers, and he answered: "I do not confirm it, I did not carry on counter-⁠revolutionary agitation." He did not admit guilt of any charge. On 1 December 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and the priest Basil Pariysky was shot on 8 December 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo firing range.

He is commemorated on 8 December, on 29 May (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, and on 10 December in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Radonezh, all in the new style.