John Baranov

Holy Hieromartyr John Baranov, a priest, was in the world Ivan Samsonovich Baranov, born in 1874 in the village of Rudnya-⁠Pribytkovskaya in the Gomel province, on the territory of present-⁠day Belarus. From 1895 to 1911 he was a teacher, and in 1911 he was ordained priest. He served the parish of the village of Golovichi, near his birthplace, from 1914 to 1933, then was arrested and sentenced to five years of exile in Kazakhstan. He lived in the village of Tarkhanka.

In exile he wrote anonymous apologetic letters to the newspaper "Agitator's Companion", in reply to the anti-⁠religious articles published there, and for this he was arrested again on 5 November 1937. The charge was systematic anti-⁠collective-⁠farm propaganda. On 20 November he was sentenced to death. From the indictment: he was said to have carried on counterrevolutionary propaganda aimed at breaking up the collective farms, spreading through the press, under invented names, letters against the collective farms and the mechanization of agriculture.

At the interrogation Father John said that a postcard had indeed been written by him, but that he had not spoken out against collectivization; that he had written to the papers letters defending "priestcraft" and rejecting materialism, and that he had not taken part in any counterrevolutionary activity. In the letter attached to the file, sent to the newspaper, he wrote that in the world development goes in such a way that everything higher contains the properties of the lower. Man completes evolution, but he has a spirit distinct from the organism, with capacities for eternal life in the kingdom of the Spirit: the thought of the Creator, the religious and moral sense, responsibility for deeds, freedom to decide. In the spirit there are two laws: of truth, the good for all, and of falsehood, personal good at the expense of others. Christianity began with common life, and socialism is closer to Christianity than other things, but the mistake of socialism is that it does not distinguish true believers from hypocrites, nor true pastors from mere performers of rites, and it constrains pure religion, weakening itself and making many innocent people suffer, whose merit is that they are bearers of culture. Religion requires submission to the authorities that exist, and none of the true believers will resist them.

The sentence was carried out on 4 December 1937. The Church commemorates him, according to the Azbyka page, on 5 December, in the new style, and on the movable days of the synaxis of the new martyrs and of the Saints of Belarus.