Jacob Arkhipov

Holy Hieromartyr Jacob Arkhipov (1888-1937), a priest, was born on 14 October 1888 in the village of Belenitsyno, Vladimir province, in the poor peasant family of Ivan Arkhipov. From childhood he loved the Lord and had a beautiful voice. Still a youth, he decided to leave home. Until 1914 he went about various churches as a church singer, then served as a psalmist in the Poshekhonye and Danilov districts and taught singing at the school in the village of Ermakovo. There he met his future wife, Anna Nikolaevna.

In 1919 he was called into the Red Army, where, through the Lord's protection, he led the choir section. After demobilisation he received ordination as a priest and in 1921 was appointed to the Transfiguration cathedral of the already closed Spaso-⁠Gennadiev monastery. Contact with the monks of the monastery and frequent services held together made Father Jacob, sent after nine years to an ordinary parish church, serve still in monastic fashion. Looking at the hungry and plundered people, he gave all his strength to the service of God and of the wronged. His fervent prayer found an echo at once in the hearts of the faithful. In the church of the village of Voskresenie-⁠Runovo (today Runovskoe, Tutaev district) the number of parishioners began to grow visibly.

Although he was of peasant stock and had studied only three years, Father Jacob gave the impression of an educated man. He read much, wrote correctly, took an interest in the sciences, and there were many books in the house. The priest's family lived poorly, but, as parishioners remembered, the father could give away his last possession.

The self-⁠sacrificing ministry of a simple village priest was regarded by the OGPU as counter-⁠revolutionary agitation. On 1 December 1930 Father Jacob was arrested and sentenced to three years in concentration camps. He served the sentence in Kazakhstan, and at home his wife and five children were left without any means of living. In 1934 the priest returned from exile. His place as priest at Runovo was taken, so he served for a time in the village of Verkhne-⁠Nikulskoe, again far from his family. After the death of the rector of the Resurrection church, he returned home and to his own church.

In 1937 a new wave of arrests began. On 5 August Father Jacob was arrested again, as a member of an insurgent kulak counter-⁠revolutionary group. He denied his guilt, without accusing anyone. On 26 August, on the commemoration of the icon of the Mother of God of the Passion, he was shot. The place of his burial is unknown. By decision of the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Church of 2000 he was numbered among the holy martyrs.

He is commemorated on 26 August, on 7 February, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, and on 5 June, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl (new style, the second being a movable day).