Gregory Konokotin

Holy Hieromartyr Gregory Konokotin (1869-1921), a priest, served in Stavropol province and in the Kuban region and taught the Law of God. He was arrested in September 1921 in Krasnodar and shot on 28 September 1921.

He was born on 1 April 1869 in the family of a priest in the village of Novoegorlykskoe in Stavropol province. He served as priest and teacher of religion in the village of Takhtinskoe, in the church of the Protection of the Mother of God in the village of Medvedskoe in Stavropol province, and in the village of Moldavskoe in the Kuban region. He received church and state awards, among them the Order of Saint Anne for work in schools. He was married and had five children.

On 8 September 1921 he was arrested at home in Krasnodar for flight from Soviet power. The case was heard on 23 September at a session of the collegium of the Kubchercheka (the Kuban-⁠Black Sea Extraordinary Commission). The collegium resolved to consider the offence proven and to shoot him as an enemy of the working people. The sentence was carried out on 28 September 1921, at 2 a.m., in the presence of the members of the collegium.

He is commemorated on 28 September, on 3 October, in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Kuban Metropolis, and on 7 February, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church (new style, the last two being movable days).