Gregory Troitsky

Holy Hieromartyr Gregory Troitsky (1870-1921), a priest, served in the churches of Stavropol province and the Kuban region. In 1921 he was arrested by the Kuban-⁠Black Sea Extraordinary Commission on a charge of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation, for his sermons against denunciations and against the non-⁠delivery of the tax in kind. He was sentenced to death and executed on 28 September 1921, in Krasnodar, together with other priests. He was glorified in the year 2003.

He was born on 1 October 1870 in the village of Gromok, Morshansk district, Tambov province (today the Bashmakovo district of Penza region), in the family of a church servant. After the seminary at Stavropol he was assigned, on 22 July 1892, psalmist at the church of the Entry into the Temple in the stanitsa of Pashkovskaya, Kuban region. From 1894 to 1896 he was a teacher at the church school in the stanitsa of Dolzhanskaya. On 20 August 1895 he was ordained deacon, and on 22 July 1896 priest at the church of the Protection of the Mother of God in the village of Sandata, Medvezhye district, Stavropol province. He was also head and religion teacher of the church schools of this village, and from 1897 a missionary against the sects and (1898-1901) against Buddhism in the fourth deanery of Stavropol province. From 28 August 1903 he was priest at the church of the Archangel Michael in the village of Aleksandrovskoe, Stavropol province, and at the same time religion teacher in the ministry schools and member and secretary of the Aleksandrovskoe branch of the diocesan school council.

On 19 April 1904 he was moved again to the Kuban region, as priest at the Holy Trinity church in the stanitsa of Dolzhanskaya, where he was religion teacher at the ministry school for non-⁠residents, head and teacher of the boys' and girls' church schools (until 1909). From 1906 he was spiritual investigator in the fifth deanery of the Kuban region. In 1911 to 1913 he was a delegate of the white clergy at district and diocesan congresses. On 30 May 1913 he was moved as priest to the Ascension church in the stanitsa of Pashkovskaya, where he was head of the church school (until 1914) and teacher in the boys' and girls' schools. At the same time he was district warden of the Ekaterinodar committee for the people's sobriety and a member of the audit committee of the Ekaterinodar diocesan girls' school. He received the Red Cross medal for taking part in the activity of the Russian Red Cross Society in the Russo-⁠Japanese War of 1904-1905.

From January 1921, after the arrest of the chairman of the board of the diocesan candle factory, he acted as a member of the board, and in July Bishop Sergius (Lavrov) of Kuban officially entrusted him with the management of the factory. On 15 September he was called to the Kuban-⁠Black Sea Extraordinary Commission and arrested on a charge of corresponding with repressed clergy and of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation. He did not plead guilty, but did not hide that in sermons he condemned denunciations against those who hid grain or did not deliver the tax in kind. On 22 September an assistant of the plenipotentiary for clergy drew up a report proposing that he be sent to Arkhangelsk province, since his presence within the bounds of the Kuban-⁠Black Sea region was not admissible in the interests of building Soviet power in the Kuban. On 23 September the Collegium of the Commission sentenced him to death as an enemy of the working people. He was executed on 28 September 1921 with the priests and hieromartyrs Andrei Kovalev, Gregory Konokotin and Ioann Yakovlev. His name was entered into the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia by decision of the Holy Synod of 26 December 2003.

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).