Demetrius Vdovin

Holy Martyr Demetrius Vdovin was a layman and a merchant and died in a camp on 23 April 1942. He was born on 3 February 1883 in Kolomna, in the family of the small trader Mikhail Antonovich and Lyubov Panteleimonovna Vdovin. He is commemorated on 23 April, on 7 February, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, on 13 July, in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Birobidzhan Diocese, and on 5 September, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.

After the town school in Kolomna he worked as a salesman in a shop, and in 1910 married a merchant's daughter, Nadezhda Ivanovna Arkhipova. From 1912 he opened a small business, where he was both owner and salesman. After the revolution, which set atheism as the state faith of the citizens and ruined the economic order of the country, he worked as a supply agent and clerk, and after petty trade was permitted again he became co-⁠owner of a quarter of the shop Kazakov and Vdovin, which traded in dishes and wood-⁠chip goods; from 1927 he made and sold sieves. In 1930 he had to give up the craft and take a job in a state organisation. Although of small means, as a trader he was deprived of voting rights. On 15 April 1935 the authorities of Kolomna ordered all the disenfranchised to leave the district in ten days, and from 25 April he settled in the town of Ozery in the Moscow region. He pressed for the reversal of this unjust decision, and on 9 March 1936 the VTsIK granted the petition and he returned home. In 1937 he worked as a supply agent at the District Office of Local Industry. For two years, in 1928 and 1929, he was warden of a church in Kolomna.

The arrest

After in 1937 the leadership of the country demanded that the NKVD arrest a set number of people in each city, district and region, the Kolomna NKVD set eagerly about carrying out the order. All the church ministers still at liberty in the Kolomna district were arrested, as well as some of the laity, among them, on 22 August 1937, Dmitry Mikhailovich Vdovin. At the investigation, in the prison in Kolomna, the investigator accused him of being dissatisfied with Soviet power, and he protested: I have nothing to be dissatisfied with, I live well, I work, I have three good children, who work. The investigator said that since he had traded and his business had been ruined, how could he be satisfied. But Dmitry Mikhailovich did not agree with these arguments, and the next day the investigator came with new questions, accusing him of agitation against Soviet power. When he asked when and where such agitation had occurred, the investigator answered that perhaps in Moscow, for as a supplier, being there on business, he could have agitated. Dmitry Mikhailovich protested at such frivolous claims. Two days later, at night, the investigator called him again and demanded testimony about his church activity. He said that in 1928-1929 he was a member of the parish council, that since 1929 he was not, but that he remained to this day a supporter of the Tikhonite orientation. He was accused of taking part in a counter-⁠revolutionary church-⁠monarchist organisation, and he denied it categorically. He demanded a confrontation with the false witness, which took place on 28 August; the witness confirmed his testimony, and Dmitry Mikhailovich said that he considered it false and categorically denied it and asked the witness how he could act so, did he not think of death.

The camp

At the end of the investigations in Kolomna, Dmitry Mikhailovich was taken on 1 September 1937 to Taganka, in Moscow, where the investigator again demanded testimony about counter-⁠revolutionary activity, but he answered that he had not belonged to any counter-⁠revolutionary organisation and did not admit guilt. On 9 October 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years in a camp, and he was sent to Bamlag, where he arrived on 16 November. At first he worked at logging, but then, falling gravely ill, he was placed in the camp hospital, where he was recognised as an invalid and sent to work at the central workshops at the railway construction. On 30 January 1939 he wrote to his family that he was in the Far East, at the station Izvestkovaya, in the settlement of Kuldur, and worked in the fifty-⁠third column, in the tailoring workshop. On 21 December 1939 he wrote: thank you for the care of me and my health; I feel well so far for my age; I already walk without crutches, but with a stick; soon it will be twenty-⁠five months since I left you and who knows how many more will pass. On 30 December he wrote that the year 1940 was coming, that time runs like water, whether you live well or ill, that with them winter was in full swing, but the weather was wonderful. On 23 January 1940 he wrote to his wife: you ask me not to give in to despondency; you think this in vain; I too know that with sorrow and sadness you do not help the matter; I feel very well, cheerful in spirit, though the flesh is somewhat weak; the collective of people in our column is very good; the superiors are kindly and treat me attentively; do not send parcels or money. On 26 January he sent an application to the Supreme Prosecutor of the RSFSR, asking for a review of the case and release from the camp, but received the answer usual in those years, that there were no grounds for review. On 5 September 1940 he wrote to the leadership of the NKVD that he considered the charges baseless and unproved and asked that the file be called for and the troika's decision protested. The application remained without result. On 23 November 1940 he wrote to his wife and children that he was still alive and relatively healthy, that the weather was good and the sun shone equally on the good and the evil. On 22 June 1941 the war began and all contact of the prisoners with their relatives ceased. The last letter received from him was sent on 28 May 1941. The living conditions of the prisoners worsened greatly with the war. Dmitry Mikhailovich Vdovin died on 23 April 1942 in the Sredne-⁠Belsk camp and was buried in an unknown grave.