Jacob Brilliantov

Holy Hieromartyr Jacob Brilliantov, a priest, was born on 7 March 1871 in the village of Nikulino, Bronnitsy district, Moscow province. In 1893 he finished the Moscow theological seminary. After ordination he served until 1927 at the Vladychny convent in Serpukhov. After the closure of the convent he was appointed to the Holy Trinity church in the village of Luzhki, Serpukhov district, and in 1929 transferred to the Epiphany church in Kolomna. From 1 July to 1 September 1931 he acted as dean.

In 1930 men of the Kolomna OGPU tried to draw him into collaboration. In April he was called to interrogation and asked which of the merchants and priests known to him were engaged in counter-⁠revolution. He refused to give any testimony and was soon released. It is not known how many times such talks were held, but on 5 June he signed a document of collaboration, understanding it quite differently from the OGPU representatives. On 12 December 1931 he was called again to interrogation and arrested. During the interrogation he told the investigator that he would not be a spy and provocateur, that from April 1930 until then he had denounced no one, that he considered that, had he learned anything against Soviet power or against the tsar, as a citizen he would have had to report it to the state organs, but that now priests are afraid of everything, afraid to speak, afraid of themselves. He himself thought he would have to suffer for his truthfulness and sincerity, and work in the OGPU organs, he said, means provocation and espionage, and therefore he refused for the second time to help the OGPU. On 3 January 1932 he was released, with the thought that, having passed through prison, he would reform.

On 29 March 1932 he was arrested and imprisoned in the Kolomna detention house. The same day he was interrogated; he confirmed again the testimony of 12 December 1931 and said that he would not work as a spy and provocateur, considering this an immoral act for a priest; the undertaking of 5 June he had understood as an obligation to inform the OGPU if any conspiracy were organised against Soviet power, which had not happened; discontent with the measures of the authorities existed and had existed among believers, but he did not consider it necessary to report it, and told the discontented to endure. Among the clergy, he observed, all are frightened by the arrests made by the OGPU and are afraid to speak openly about the policy of Soviet power. On 1 April the priest Mikhail Dmitrievich Pokrovsky, who also served in Kolomna, was interrogated and, though he said he knew Father Jacob little, slandered him entirely, signing what the investigation needed, that he was an ardent monarchist, dissatisfied with Soviet power and always reviling it. At the interrogation of 8 April the investigator asked him of his attitude to Soviet power and his relations with the Kolomna clergy previously arrested. He answered that in 1929 the priest Miroliubov had told him that Bishop Theodosius, the priests Strakhov and others, ten in all, had been arrested in November 1929 by the OGPU for not commemorating Soviet power at the service. He himself had begun to commemorate Soviet power from 1925, two or three years before the ordinance of Metropolitan Sergius. To believers who complained of the actions of the Bolsheviks, of the closing of churches and of work on feasts, he answered that Soviet power acts rightly, for they had themselves abandoned the Church and worked on feasts, so they could not blame it. Asked by the investigator whether he would not feel moral humiliation in helping Soviet power to fight the class enemies, he answered: I, as a priest, find it incompatible with the priesthood to work by all means for Soviet power.

On 19 April the plenipotentiary of the Kolomna branch of the OGPU drew up the indictment, writing that the priest Brilliantov, being their secret informer, besides ignoring the obligations he had taken on, was neglecting the work and carrying on anti-⁠Soviet agitation among the clergy and the faithful. On 8 May 1932 the OGPU troika sentenced him to three years of exile in Kazakhstan. After serving it he returned to the Moscow region and settled in the village of Gory, Ozery district, where he was appointed to serve in the church of Saint Sergius of Radonezh.

At the end of the thirties the authorities took measures for the physical destruction of the Russian Church. In the height of the persecution, on 21 November 1937, Father Jacob Brilliantov was arrested and imprisoned in the Kolomna jail. Asked by the investigator whether he had ever done work of public benefit, he answered that never in his life had he done work of public benefit. Asked whether he admitted guilt of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation, he answered: I do not admit that I carried on counter-⁠revolutionary agitation among the people, for to me every authority is from God. The acts of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation imputed to me I never uttered, anti-⁠Soviet activity I never carried on. On 23 November 1937 an NKVD troika condemned him to death. The priest Jacob Brilliantov was shot on 2 December 1937 at the Butovo firing range and buried in an unknown common grave.

He is commemorated on 2 December, on 29 May, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, and on 5 September, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow (new style, the last two being movable days).