John Artemov

Holy Martyr John Artemov, a layman, was born on 25 March 1887 in the village of Sanino in the Pokrov district of the Vladimir province, in the family of the village carpenter Ivan Andreevich Artemov. With a technical education, he worked for many years as a builder and a specialist in cost estimates. Moved to work in Moscow, he kept his ties with the people of his native village, where he was known as a deeply believing and devout man.

In 1935 the local authorities in Sanino tried to close the church, on the ground that the old church "twenty" of believers had fallen apart. The believers protested, gathered a new twenty, to which John Artemov belonged, and sent a complaint to the regional executive committee. It found the requests lawful and ordered the local committee to open the church at once, to register the priest and not to hinder the community. The church was opened, but the community fell into straits, since it had to pay taxes though no services were held. They asked Ivan Ivanovich to bring help from his Orthodox acquaintances in Moscow, which he did, and later it was held against him.

In Moscow, in his flat, there often lived priests from closed churches left without a place, monks and believers, and in the house in the village a priest lived. The NKVD learned that he held religious conversations among the building workers and collected money for the church, which was enough for an arrest. On 22 August 1937 he was arrested and imprisoned in Butyrka, in Moscow. At the beginning of September the investigator questioned his neighbours in the flat, then him. John was accused of having brought the workers to the faith for counterrevolutionary purposes and of preaching that fascism would soon come and Soviet power would be shot. He answered that he had said nothing against Soviet power and did not admit guilt. Asked why he collected money for restoring the church though he lived in Moscow, he answered that he sometimes visited his native village and was known there as a very religious man.

On 7 October 1937 the NKVD troika condemned him to death. John Artemov was shot on 14 October 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo firing range near Moscow. The Church commemorates him on 14 October, in the new style, and on the movable days of the synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo and of the Saints of Moscow.