Dionysius Petushkov

Holy Venerable Martyr Dionysius Petushkov, a schemamonk, was born on 26 September 1866 in the village of Sumino in the Kashin district of the Tver province, in the family of the peasants Joseph Ioakimovich and Matrona Ivanovna Petushkov. He received the crown of martyrdom by shooting on 10 June 1931 in Moscow. The Russian Church honours him among the New Martyrs and Confessors of the twentieth century.

On 24 September 1905 he entered the Nilov Stolobny Hermitage in the Ostashkov district of the Tver province as a novice, where he was given the obedience of candle-⁠keeper. On 10 January 1910 he was tonsured a monk with the name Euthymius, and later he received the schema with the name Dionysius. He laboured in the monastery until the godless closed it in 1927.

The day after the closing, Sergei Feodorovich Komarov came to the hermitage, a rich and devout peasant who had long been a benefactor of the monastery. He had known Father Dionysius for many years and honoured him as an elder full of grace, so he invited him to his farm at Cherenchikha and gave him an empty house of two rooms. In one the elder slept, and the other he made a place of prayer, where he kept the coffin prepared for himself.

People round about learned that a schemamonk from Nilov Stolobny had settled there and began to come: some for a blessing, some for counsel in the troubles of life, especially of family life, some to ask whether they should join the collective farm, and others to ask for prayer for healing. The Father received them all and, after prayer, anointed the sick with oil from the lamp. As the crowds grew, the news reached the authorities as well.

At the beginning of 1930 the house was searched, and the elder soon left, escaping arrest for the time. Believers sheltered him on other farms, and he moved from one to another. On the night of 6 February 1931 agents of the OGPU came to Cherenchikha to arrest him. Not finding him, they demanded that the hostess tell them where he was, and Sergei Feodorovich answered that he did not know and that he would rather be taken himself in the elder's place, to suffer for him. Father Dionysius was later caught and taken to prison.

Questioning the locals, the agents saw that the schemamonk was greatly loved and respected among the peasants and decided not to release him. He was taken to Tver, and on 18 February to the Butyrka prison in Moscow, where his file was joined to a wider case of priests, monks and laymen.

At the interrogation he confirmed that many women had come to him for blessing and counsel, and that he had said what he thought: he believed the time before the Judgment had come, that Soviet power was permitted by God only as a punishment for sins, and that the collective farms seemed to him contrary to the faith, since a believer cannot pray there. He added that he had imposed these views on no one.

On 6 June 1931 the OGPU Collegium sentenced him to death, and on 10 June he was shot and buried in an unknown common grave at the Vagankovo cemetery in Moscow.

He is commemorated on 10 June, the day of his confession, and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, as well as in the synaxes of the saints of Tver and of Moscow.