Gregory Nikolsky

Holy Hieromartyr Gregory Nikolsky (1854-1918), a priest, was a hereditary Don Cossack and the son of a priest. After civil service he received ordination (1883) and served in the Astrakhan and Stavropol dioceses, devoting himself to mission and to the enlightenment of the people. From 1915 he was priest of the Mary Magdalene convent in the Kuban, where he directed the school attached to a reformatory shelter. On 27 June 1918 he was cruelly killed by the Bolsheviks, after the Liturgy.

He was born on 13 November 1854 in the stanitsa of Yaryzhenskaya, in the territory of the Great Don Host, in the family of a Cossack priest. After finishing the theological school in Novocherkassk, in 1871 he entered state service, which he ended with the rank of provincial secretary, in Astrakhan province. In 1883 he was ordained deacon and priest and served in various places of the Astrakhan diocese, taking an active part in the work of the Astrakhan branch of the Missionary Society. From 1892 he served in the Stavropol diocese, where he organised a free public reading room at his parish. In those years he regularly visited the Saint Nicholas Caucasus Missionary Monastery, devoting himself to prayer in solitude.

From 1915 until his death he was a cleric of the Black Sea Mary Magdalene convent in Kuban province. There he directed the school of the girls' section of the Kuban reformatory shelter, giving much time and strength to talks with the pupils, and cared for the consolation of wounded soldiers in the monastery hospital. In life he was honoured as a zealous and worthy pastor, a talented teacher and a builder of churches, was more than once rewarded by the diocesan authorities, and his life was full of active love for his neighbour and care for the Christian education of children and adults.

In the summer of 1918 Kuban was taken by the revolutionaries, and Soviet power was established everywhere. The Bolsheviks treated the population cruelly and regularly took reprisals against the clergy. On 27 June a Bolshevik detachment burst into the convent. After the Divine Liturgy in the cathedral of the Ascension, the soldiers arrested Father Gregory and led him out with mockery beyond the church fence. There the priest was cruelly beaten, and when he tried to cross himself, the executioners struck his hands on purpose and, with the words we will give you communion, fired a revolver into his mouth.

His memory is especially honoured in the restored Mary Magdalene convent, where memorial services for him are held regularly. His name was entered in the calendar of the Russian Church by decision of the Holy Synod of 4 April 2019. He is commemorated on 10 July, on 28 September and on 7 February, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church (new style, the last being a movable day).