Demetrius Rozanov

Holy Hieromartyr Demetrius Rozanov, an archpriest (1890-1937), was born on 24 October 1890 in the family of the psalm-⁠reader of the church of the Savior in the village of Ivashkovo, in the Volokolamsk district, Ilya Ivanovich Rozanov. He was ordained priest in 1914 for the Zosima Hermitage and received the crown of martyrdom by shooting on 9 October 1937, and was buried at Butovo. He is commemorated on 9 October, on 29 May, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, and on 5 September, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.

In 1907 he finished the clerical school in Volokolamsk, and in 1914 the Bethany seminary, and in the same year was ordained priest for the Holy Trinity Hermitage of Zosima, where Abbess Sophia Bykova was his wife's aunt. The years of Father Demetrius's service at the Zosima Hermitage were serene until the start of the persecution of the Church. In the first years the hermitage remained in relative quiet, living in the guise of an agricultural commune. Abbess Athanasia Lepeshkina, who succeeded Abbess Sophia, then about eighty years old, knew how to deal with the authorities prudently and with restraint, without falling into humiliation. On 12 May 1922, by the decree of 23 February 1922, the last valuables were taken from the monastery. Father Demetrius managed to come to an agreement with the authorities and to give, in place of the covers from the icons, the crown from the Crucifixion and the covers of the Gospel, silver coins, medals, lamps, spoons and other silver objects of the same weight.

The closing of the monastery

The persecution of the early 1930s, which aimed to destroy every trace of monastic life, did not spare the monastery. First the monastery was closed, and the nuns scattered through the villages around, not wishing to go far from the walls of the beloved monastery, and in May 1931 all the nuns and novices were arrested. Father Demetrius was arrested on 28 May and imprisoned, like all the sisters of the Zosima Hermitage, at the NKVD section in Naro-⁠Fominsk. The nuns questioned said that they regarded Soviet power as godless, that prayer for it would be a sin and that they had been arrested only because they believed in God. Right after the arrest the investigator questioned Father Demetrius, and he said that he knew the nuns of the Zosima Hermitage well, that they had visited each other, that their talk had been of private life and memories, not of politics, apart from the distortions of collective farm life, drawn from what was read in newspapers and from what people said on public transport. On 31 May he said that the church where he served was of the Sergian orientation. Many peasants in 1930-1931 refused to join the collective farm, and the nuns were accused of having influenced the peasants, going through houses, where they were invited to sit with the children or to collect material for sewing and knitting, and speaking of the faith, urging people to go to church and keep the church rules and fasts. On 16 July 1931 the OGPU troika sentenced eleven nuns to various terms of imprisonment and exile. Father Demetrius was sentenced to three years of exile in Kazakhstan.

His last ministry

Returned from exile, on 23 May 1935 he was appointed to the church of the icon of the Mother of God Joy of All Who Sorrow in the village of Fyodorovskoe, in the Volokolamsk district. On 31 March 1936 he was raised to the rank of archpriest. In February 1937, after the arrest of the priest Eugene Arkhangelsky, who served at the church of the Protection in the village of Novo-⁠Vasilievskoe, he was moved to his place, and there the last persecution found him. The chairman of the village soviet wrote that the priest carried on anti-⁠Soviet agitation, using the church as a platform, and preached so successfully that the believers wept at his sermons. As an example he cited the words of Father Demetrius that, as his predecessor was in prison, perhaps he too would have to suffer. In August 1937 the witnesses on duty said that the priest was a capable man and served well, that in a sermon he urged people to pray for his predecessor, Father Arkhangelsky, who had suffered from the Bolsheviks and languished in prison, asked them to pray for him too, that the Lord might protect him, and urged the parishioners to pray zealously in the days of Holy Week. Archpriest Demetrius was arrested on 8 September 1937. The investigator read him the words from the sermon of 15 February 1937, and he acknowledged them, adding that he had said that Arkhangelsky would not return and that they should pray for him and for himself. He admitted that he knew Arkhangelsky had been arrested as an enemy of the people and that he had urged the faithful to pray for him, and that he had told other clergy that in Novo-⁠Vasilievskoe religion was broken, but that there were many means to strengthen it, Holy Scripture and conversations, and that he had advised them not to abandon the church. He admitted telling the former priest Vasilievsky that all promises to find him work were worthless. He denied having said that Soviet power would soon change. After the interrogations he was imprisoned at Butyrka. On 8 October 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced him to death. Archpriest Demetrius Rozanov was shot the next day, on 9 October 1937, and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo firing range.