Jacob Peredy

Holy New Martyr Jacob Peredy was a protopresbyter who received the crown of martyrdom in 1937, in exile in Kazakhstan. The Orthodox Church honours him among the new martyrs of the Alma-⁠Ata eparchy.

He was born on 23 October 1871 in the village of Mliny, in the Gadyach district of the Poltava province. He had only elementary schooling, but he passed the examinations required of candidates for the priesthood and was ordained. In 1934 he was raised to the rank of protopresbyter and served at the church of the village of Velbovka, in the Kharkiv region.

On 28 August 1936 he was arrested on the charge of belonging to a "counter-⁠revolutionary group of churchmen", and on 27 March 1937 the NKVD Special Council sentenced him to five years of exile in Kazakhstan. In exile he worked as a watchman at a road-⁠building site in the village of Borodulikha, in East Kazakhstan. On 21 November 1937 he was arrested again, for "anti-⁠Soviet agitation against the collective-⁠farm system", and held in Semipalatinsk. He did not admit guilt, but on 27 November a special troika of the regional NKVD sentenced him to death by shooting. He was buried in an unknown grave.

His name was entered in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church by decision of the Holy Synod of 27 December 2000. He is commemorated on 2 December (19 November by the old calendar) and on the movable day of the Synaxis of the New Martyrs.