Constantine Nemeshaev

Holy Hieromartyr Constantine Nemeshaev, a priest, was born on 23 November 1879 in the village of Pesochnoe, Zhizdra district, Kaluga province, in the family of the priest George Nemeshaev. Following in his father's footsteps, he entered the theological seminary in Kaluga. After graduating he married and had four children.

Until 1930 Father Constantine's place of service was, it seems, his native village. There he met the revolution with his family and lived through the hardships of the following years. He was arrested several times, in 1921 and in 1930; the second arrest ended in a trial and the confiscation of his property. Father Constantine had to move with his family to the Moscow region, to the village of Vedeny in the Ruza district, where the OGPU went on persecuting the priest and his family; their apartment was searched, but nothing was found. In 1930 the Nemeshaev family moved to the village of Dedinovo in the Lukhovitsy district, where Father Constantine served until his arrest in 1937.

The next wave of repression in 1937-1938 could not fail to touch a pastor like him. Even in the dreadful thirties the church where he served was full of people. He was arrested on 6 November 1937 on a charge of active counter-⁠revolutionary activity and held in the Kolomna prison. The investigator told him that he had carried on slanderous counter-⁠revolutionary agitation among the people and asked whether he admitted it, and the priest answered that he had never carried on counter-⁠revolutionary agitation among the people. On 17 November 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced him to death. The priest Constantine Nemeshaev was shot on 21 November 1937 and buried in an unknown mass grave at the Butovo firing range near Moscow.

He is commemorated on 22 November, on 29 May, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs who suffered at Butovo (the date moves), on 31 July, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Kaluga, and on 5 September, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, in the new style.