Constantine Nekrasov

Holy Hieromartyr Constantine Nekrasov, a priest, was born on 15 October 1872 in the town of Mozhaisk, Moscow province, in the family of the psalm-⁠reader Nikita Nekrasov. His full name was Constantine Nikitich Nekrasov. In 1887 he finished the theological school, and in 1893 the Bethany theological seminary. He married Alexandra Petrovna, and they had four children. He was ordained priest at one of the churches of Mozhaisk and after a time was appointed rector of the cathedral of Saint Nicholas and one of the deans of the diocese. He was one of the most active priests of the diocese: he founded a Temperance Society in Mozhaisk and worked ceaselessly among the peasants, doing all he could to heal them of the ruinous passion for drink.

In 1923 he was arrested for zealous church activity and sentenced to two years of exile in the town of Berezov in the Tobolsk province. Returning from exile, he served at the church of the Protection of the Mother of God in the village of Alexino, Ruza district. On 9 May 1930 an informer told the OGPU officer Malkov that in Alexino there was a strong group of churchmen. On 20 August 1930 Malkov arrested the priest Constantine Nekrasov and the nun Paraskeva Zhukova and shut them up at the OGPU office in Ruza.

The investigator questioned Father Constantine the next day. He answered that in Alexino he had engaged in no anti-⁠Soviet activity, that he had never lived in wealth and had no interest in seeking anything better, that he desired only moral and spiritual peace, that his sermons had always been the word of God, teaching love and peace, and that his authority among the people came from behaving as a true Christian, not from opposing the authorities. He added that if he was guilty he did not object to being punished, but if innocent there was little sense in his being held behind bars as a martyr. When the investigation ended he asked that it be recorded in the protocol that he did not admit guilt and that the believers be questioned, who would confirm that he had done nothing unlawful, holding all the materials to be false, coming from people who wished to remove him from Alexino. He tried to send his family a note and a petition to the OGPU Collegium asking for the denunciation to be checked, but the petition was not passed up, and was attached to the file by the investigator. On 25 September 1930 the OGPU troika sentenced him to three years of exile in Kazakhstan, where he was sent to Semipalatinsk. After his exile Father Constantine came to Mozhaisk and was assigned to the church of the Holy Prophet Elijah.

On 5 December 1937 he was arrested again and put in the prison in Mozhaisk. Two days later an interrogation took place, and the next day the indictment was drawn up, charging him, among other things, with much work "to consolidate the church activists", for which he had organised a choir of former nuns and active churchgoers. On 9 December the NKVD troika sentenced him to death. The priest Constantine Nekrasov was shot on 15 December 1937 and buried in an unknown grave.

He is commemorated on 15 December, the day of his death, on 29 May, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs who suffered at Butovo (the date moves), and on 5 September, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, in the new style.