Jacob Shestakov

Saint Jacob (Yakov Vasilievich Shestakov, 1858-1918), hieromartyr, was a priest of Perm, a local historian, writer and publisher. He was arrested by Red soldiers at Solikamsk and shot in December 1918, near the village of Khokhlovka. He was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia by the Council of Bishops in the year 2000. He is commemorated on 10 December.

Youth and priesthood

He was born on 28 April 1858 in the village of Kamasino in the Perm district, in the family of a priest. His father died when he was seven, and he was left in the care of his grandfather, Vasily Spiridonovich Smirnov. He graduated from the church school in 1873 and the Perm seminary in 1879. He then taught at the rural school of Redikor, Cherdyn district, and from 1881 at the Yukseev school for the Permian, that is, non-⁠Slavic, population. In 1887 he was ordained priest for the church in the village of Novoturinsk, Verkhoturye district, and taught at the local school. In 1888 he was moved to the church at Khokhlovka, where he taught at the church school, in 1889 he served at the Dormition church in Cherdyn and in 1891 at the church of the village of Kudymkor. In 1894-1898 he was a member of the Perm commission of the Ural Society of Lovers of Natural Science. In 1898 he was released from the duties of dean.

Writer and publisher

From 1899 he taught at the Perm seminary and organized a commission for the translation of books into the Komi-⁠Permyak language. In the early 1900s he founded the Kama publishing house at Sarapul and in Moscow, where he published books on history and regional studies. He wrote articles in the Perm Diocesan Gazette, the Historical Messenger and other publications and, under the pseudonym Yakov Kamasinsky, printed ethnographic essays, Near the Kama (1905). He left many works on the history of the Church in Perm: A Perm Paterikon, histories of monasteries of the Perm, Ufa and Vyatka dioceses, a chronicle of the centenary of the Perm diocese (1899), The Beginning of the Yekaterinburg Diocese (1914), A Historical Guide to Solikamsk (1917) and works for church servants, among them an explanation of the prayers and commandments and of the arrangement of the Christian church and the seven Mysteries. From 1909 he lived in Saint Petersburg and worked in the censorship committee of the Holy Synod. His wife was Alexandra Matveevna Vilesova.

Martyrdom

In December 1918 he was arrested by Red soldiers at Solikamsk. He was shot ten versts from the village of Khokhlovka, in the Okhansk district, and buried in the Khokhlovka cemetery. The sources give no details of the arrest or of any investigation.