Benjamin Blagonadezhdin

Holy Hieromartyr Benjamin Blagonadezhdin was a priest in the village of Chekovo in Vladimir province and was shot on 1 October 1937.

He was born on 24 March 1880 in the village of Oparino in the Alexandrov district, Vladimir province, in the family of the psalm-⁠reader Elias Blagonadezhdin. He graduated from the Moscow seminary in 1904 and was sent as a teacher to the school at Verkhnee Makhalovo, then taught at schools in Kolomna and in the Dmitrov district. In 1906 he was ordained priest for the church in the village of Chekovo and served there until his arrest. In the years of persecution he was brought to account several times, on the pretext of unpaid taxes.

In 1926 he was called as a witness in the case of Bishop Athanasius Sakharov, accused of anti-⁠Soviet sermons. Father Benjamin related that at the feast of Saint George at Lykovo, in November 1925, he had served at the vigil and at the Liturgy with the bishop. The evening sermon divided the Church into two currents and likened the Renovationists to false coin, but urged nothing against the authorities. The second sermon was about the Great Martyr George as a model of faith. He had heard nothing about persecution in the sermons, but added that he could not vouch that the bishop had not spoken of it, since he might have listened inattentively.

In 1930 the church at Chekovo was closed, but with the support of the faithful the priest obtained in that same year the right to serve again, and the church remained open until his arrest. He was arrested on 8 September 1937 and held at Yuryev-⁠Polsky. The secretary of the village council testified that the priest had told the faithful that the new constitution restored the rights of the clergy at the urging of the pope, that he had foretold a dry summer, and that he had practiced healing in secret. He had also given a child who was ill a recipe of pine cones, and the child allegedly wasted away. At his questioning the priest said that he had organized a choir of women, fifteen to twenty people from the village, and later, on 24 September, admitted that he had understood the constitution as a concession and had spoken of drought, and said of the healing that he gave advice and help, though not on a mass scale.

On 27 September an NKVD troika sentenced him to death. Father Benjamin Blagonadezhdin was shot on 1 October 1937 and buried in an unknown place.

The saint is commemorated on 1 October and, in the new style, on 7 February (movable) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, on 6 July in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir and on 5 September (movable) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.