Boris Zavarin

Holy Martyr Boris Zavarin was a psalm-⁠reader and received the crown of martyrdom by shooting on 7 February 1938. He was born on 23 April 1910 in the village of Kopyri, in the Rostov district of the Yaroslavl province, in the family of the priest Sergei Zavarin and his wife Alexandra. After finishing, already in Soviet times, the seven-⁠year school, he entered the service of the church as a psalm-⁠reader and served at the church of the Resurrection in the Raslovo graveyard, in the Gryazovets district of the Vologda region. He is commemorated on 7 February, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, on 5 June, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl, and on 11 July, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda.

On 16 January 1938 the authorities arrested Boris Sergeevich. On the same day witnesses were questioned, a postman and a teacher, who said that Boris Zavarin had agitated that the violence of the godless authority could not be endured, and had urged the collective farmers not to submit to labour discipline and to leave the collective farms. On 17 January he was taken to the prison in Vologda, together with three priests from neighbouring villages, and questioned on the same day. The priests incriminated themselves. Boris answered the investigator that he had not engaged in counter-⁠revolutionary activity and did not consider himself guilty. Asked about his social origin, he said: a priest's son. On 18 January the investigation was completed, and the head of the Gryazovets NKVD section recommended that he be sentenced under the first category. On 21 January the troika sentenced him to death. The psalm-⁠reader Boris Zavarin was shot on 7 February 1938 and buried in an unknown common grave.