Constantine Tverdislov

Saint Constantine Tverdislov, hieromartyr (1881 to 1 October 1937), was an archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church, a priest at Yuryev-⁠Polsky and at Vyazniki, shot at Ivanovo in 1937. He was canonized by decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 7 October 2002, in the Synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia of the twentieth century. He is commemorated on 18 September, in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Ivanovo Metropolis and in the Synaxis of the new martyrs.

Life

He was born in 1881 at Gorokhovets, Vladimir province, in the family of the postman Nikolai Vasilievich Tverdislov; his mother was named Alexandra Vasilievna. In 1896 he finished the church school at Murom, and in 1902 the seminary at Vladimir. From 1902 to 1904 he taught at the school in the village of Davydovo. In June 1904 he married Elena Nikolaevna Georgievskaya and on 1 August was ordained priest by Bishop Nikon (Rozhdestvensky) of Murom for the church of the Resurrection in Yuryev-⁠Polsky, of which he became rector. He preached much, and his moral and religious sermons and writings often appeared in the "Vladimir Diocesan News"; he was one of the first in the diocese, with the blessing of Archbishop Alexis (Dorodnitsyn), to introduce congregational singing in church. He combined pastoral service with religious-⁠pedagogical work and public service: he was counsellor at the courts of Yuryev-⁠Polsky (1904 to 1911), priest of the prison church and teacher of the prisoners (1904 to 1916), teacher of religion at the railway school, the real school and the private progymnasium, headed the parish school at the factory and sat on school councils and on the society for aid to poor pupils.

In 1916 he entered the Moscow Theological Academy and moved with his family to Sergiev Posad, but could study only about a year; at the end of 1917 he fell ill with anaemia. After the examinations of the second year he returned in July 1918 to the diocese of Vladimir and was appointed first rector of a village parish, then cleric of the Kazan cathedral at Vyazniki. In 1928 the authorities began the campaign to close the Kazan cathedral, with persecution of the Vyazniki clergy; Bishop German (Ryashentsev), Archpriest Alexander Voznesensky and other clergy and laity were arrested, and Constantine Tverdislov on 16 December 1928. He was accused of "reading anti-⁠Soviet sermons", did not admit guilt and on 17 May 1929 was sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia, served at Parabel, in the Narym region; then, in 1932, he was forbidden to live in twelve places in the Urals and assigned Tambov as residence for three years. In 1934 he was allowed to return to Vyazniki, where from the summer of 1935 he served at the church of the Entry into the Temple.

In May 1937 he received a letter from Tambov that priests he knew from exile had been arrested, and this was the pretext to accuse him as an active member of the "counter-⁠revolutionary group of churchmen". He was arrested on 17 August 1937, and on 27 September a troika of the NKVD for the Ivanovo region sentenced him to death. He was shot on 1 October 1937 at Ivanovo and buried in the Balino cemetery, where those shot were buried. In 1957 the Vladimir regional court annulled the accusation of 1937, and in 1989 the prosecutor's office rehabilitated him also for the repression of 1928.