Gregory Averin

Holy Priest Gregory Averin (24 January 1889 to 20 September 1937) was a Russian priest, born into a peasant family and shot in the camp at Temirtau, in Kazakhstan. He was numbered among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia at the jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000. He is commemorated on 7 September, Old Style (20 September New Style), the day of his death.

Family and early years

He was born in the village of Valy Pokrov, Yuryevets district, Kostroma governorate, into a Russian peasant family whose parents, John and Theodosia, were pious Christians. He was the eldest of twelve children (the family also raised an adopted boy). He finished the teachers' seminary in 1910 and was a teacher at the two-⁠class parish school at Kologriv. He took part in the local circle of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (the SRs), received illegal literature and spread it among teachers, pupils, their parents and soldiers of the Kologriv garrison. From September 1917 he was, elected unanimously, chairman of the zemstvo board of the Kologriv district. After the organs of Soviet power were set up he withdrew at the beginning of 1918. He spoke at a meeting of the SRs and local intelligentsia against preparing a peasant uprising in the district. The uprising nevertheless took place and, after it was put down, he was arrested with other SRs. The investigation lasted almost a year, four months of which he spent in the Cheka prison, but his guilt could not be proved and he was released. In prison he became a convinced Christian. After release he left the SR party, but refused to renounce it officially; later he explained to GPU representatives that he did not consider himself an important politician and that he thought it contrary to morality to slander a party he had belonged to in the time of its glory, at the moment when it was falling apart.

The priest

From September 1920 he worked in the library of the Pedagogical Institute at Kostroma and in 1921 studied there. In the same year he was ordained priest (celibate) and served at Kostroma, then in the village of Ilinskoe, near the Makaryev monastery. According to the memories of contemporaries, he lived very simply; his bed was some birch poles, with a thin mat on top and a small hard pillow at the head. At night he prayed and fell asleep only toward morning, sometimes did not sleep at all. He helped poor peasant families with many children. He had got a cow to feed pilgrims with its milk, but then gave it to a poor widow. He was known as an experienced spiritual father, preached much, and some atheists became believers after his sermons. He was on the side of the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) and refused to support its opponent, Bishop Nicholas (Golubev).

Arrests and the camp

In 1929 he was arrested, accused of anti-⁠Soviet agitation. He did not admit guilt and declared at interrogation that at the end of the liturgy he usually explained the Gospel that had been read, and on the feasts of saints and the twelve great feasts preached about the features of the feast; of Soviet power he did not speak, being an apolitical man. On 30 January 1930 the Special Council of the OGPU sentenced him to five years in a camp. Returning in 1934, he served at the church in the village of Simeon, Puchezh district, Ivanovo region, and quickly became a man trusted by the parishioners. In September 1935 he was arrested again and on 3 March 1936 sentenced by the Special Council of the NKVD to three years of corrective labour camp. From May 1936 he was at the Temirtau mine, where, being unable to do heavy labour, he was an accountant, then an orderly in the barracks. He bore himself with great dignity, refused to be an informer, did not bow to the camp authorities and took no part in ideological events. He did not hide his faith, urged other prisoners not to abandon faith in God, held services in the camp and read the akathist to the Mother of God every day. Shortly before the last arrest he wrote from the camp to his relatives not to grieve and not to worry about him, not to be afraid, for they know where and to Whom he was going.

Last arrest and death

In 1937 he was arrested in the camp, accused of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation, and did not admit guilt. On 13 September 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced him to death; he spent seven days in the death cell, then was shot. He was glorified for veneration in the whole Church at the jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000.