Demetrius Rozanov

Holy Hieromartyr Demetrius Rozanov, a priest, was born on 15 August 1890 in Moscow, in the family of the priest John Petrovich Rozanov, and received the crown of martyrdom by shooting on 25 November 1937, at Butovo, near Moscow. He is commemorated on 25 November, on 29 May, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, and on 5 September, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.

His father served at one of the churches of Moscow until his death, in 1920. In 1911 Demetrius finished the Moscow seminary and in 1912 was ordained deacon at the church in the village of Shestakovo, in the Glinsk district of the Ekaterinoslav province. In 1914 he was moved to a church in Moscow and made protodeacon. In 1919 he was ordained priest and then served at the church of the Holy Martyrs Florus and Laurus at Zatsep. On 1 January 1933 he was arrested together with the priests, the deacon and the members of the parish council of the church of Saints Florus and Laurus; all were imprisoned at Butyrka. The authorities accused him of being a participant in a counter-⁠revolutionary group of churchmen, whose members held gatherings at which the policy of the authorities was discussed in an anti-⁠Soviet spirit and anti-⁠Soviet jokes were told. The priest answered that in his presence no anti-⁠Soviet talk had taken place and that, visiting the homes of parishioners and performing services, he had never spoken of politics. At another interrogation the investigator, hoping to learn compromising information, asked him whether he knew Archimandrite Philaret Studinikin, and he answered that he did, that he had served in Yusupovo and had now moved to the Volokolamsk district. On 10 February, at the last interrogation, he said he had nothing new to add. On 15 March 1933 the Special Council of the OGPU sentenced him to three years of exile in the Northern Region.

He served the exile at Kargopol, where he met Archpriest Alexander Zverev. After the end of the exile, Father Alexander invited him to live in the Volokolamsk district, where he served together with the priest Pavel Andreev at the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the village of Vozmishche. There was then no free priest's place in the deanery and Father Demetrius, settled at Vozmishche while waiting for a place, took a job as packer at the tailoring artel Shveynik in Volokolamsk and served, when he could, at the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God, together with the archpriests Pavel and Alexander. On 8 October 1937 the authorities arrested him and imprisoned him at Volokolamsk. The priest was accused of having proposed that the word comrade be written on the ribbon of a funeral wreath for a deceased member of the artel, who had been in the past, in the eyes of the authorities, a kulak, and the proposal was judged counter-⁠revolutionary. On 10 October the investigator questioned him, and he said that he had proposed the text: to Alexei Ksenofontovich Kuvarov, from grateful comrades. He denied any counter-⁠revolutionary and anti-⁠Soviet speech, denied having taken part in gatherings of priests and nuns and having agitated among the collective farmers. On 27 October he was summoned again and was asked a single question, whether he admitted guilt of anti-⁠Soviet activity, and he answered that he did not. On 14 November 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced him to death. The priest Demetrius Rozanov was shot on 25 November 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo firing range.