Dimitry Sokolov

Archpriest Dimitry Sokolov was a priest in Uglich, venerated as a confessor in the time of the Soviet persecution. He was born in 1872 (or on 5 October 1873) in the village of Veretea, Mologa district, Yaroslavl governorate, and died on 17 August 1943 at Uglich. He is commemorated in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church; the source does not say when he was entered in their list and gives no particular day of commemoration.

His father, Pavel Andreevich Sokolov (born 1834), was psalm-⁠reader, or by other data deacon, at the church of Veretea, and his mother was Anna Egorova (born 1842). He finished the parish school for boys at Mologa and in 1895 the Yaroslavl seminary, and then was a teacher at the city church school and the Sunday school in Mologa. On 30 August 1899 he married the teacher Apollinaria Dobronravina, was ordained priest and on 1 August was appointed second priest at the cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Saviour in Uglich. From 1910 he was teacher of religion at the trade school, and from 1913 at the almshouse shelters. From 1928 he was rector of the cathedral. He was raised to the rank of archpriest and received church awards: the pectoral cross, the hip-⁠cloth, the violet skufia, a medal for three hundred years of the house of Romanov, and a cross with a ribbon. In 1916 he joined a commission of four people for the audit of accounts.

He was a member of the presbyters' council beside the vicar archbishop of Uglich, Seraphim (Samoylovich), and one of his closest helpers. In 1922 he spent five weeks under arrest, suspected of opposing the confiscation of church valuables; he was released when the authorities had already taken the church's valuables.

In 1929 he was arrested, because the investigation sought to learn about material help given to Archbishop Seraphim, who had been persecuted. It emerged that many had sent him money and food. Father Dimitry denied that he had corresponded, although a witness said that he received letters from the archbishop from the Solovki camp. After a month he was released. He was arrested again on 25 February 1930, accused of belonging to an anti-⁠Soviet church group of adherents of Archbishop Seraphim; the charge notes the firmness of his position. On 25 April 1930, under Article 58-10, he was sentenced to three years of exile in the Northern Region, where he remained until 1934. In exile he went blind.

He spent his last years in seclusion. He was especially venerated by his parishioners for his ascetic life. He died on 17 August 1943 and was buried at Uglich, behind the altar, in the enclosure of the church of Tsarevich Dimitry on the Field. He was rehabilitated on 12 September 1989. His wife, Apollinaria, died in 1945; their son Pavel (1900 to 1983) was a Soviet military pilot, and their daughters were Nadezhda and Nina.