Constantine Dalmatov

Holy Hieromartyr Constantine Dalmatov was a protopresbyter of the church of Holy Wisdom in Sviyazhsk and was killed in 1918, at the age of 64.

He came from a well-⁠known family of priests. After the Kazan seminary he taught Russian and Church Slavonic at the school in Chistopol until 1883; he was ordained that same year and served in the villages of Yamashevo, Urakhcha, Kornoukhovo, Syukeevo and Bogorodskoe, and finally in Sviyazhsk. He was loved for his kindness and lack of possessions, taught religion without pay in the parish schools, and had ten children. From the pulpit he spoke out against the atheism introduced into the schools.

Tradition says that after Trotsky's troops entered Sviyazhsk he was accused of having fired a machine gun from the bell tower of Holy Wisdom at the Red Guards. His son tried to defend him and was shot on the spot; then the protopresbyter was shot and run through with bayonets, on 25 July 1918, the day of the repose of the righteous Anna. The bodies of father and son lay for two days in the town square.

He is honoured in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kazan, on 4 October by the old calendar (17 October by the new).