John Boykov

Holy Hieromartyr John Boykov (Ivan Yakovlevich Boykov) was a Russian priest from Bezhetsk, born in 1891 and dead after 28 July 1934, probably at Krasnovishersk, in the Vishera camps. He was the brother of Holy Hieromartyr Jacob Boykov. The Russian Church numbered him among the saints in 2000, for veneration throughout the Church. He is commemorated on 6 April (19 April by the new calendar) and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. The year 1930 in our record, as the year of death, does not agree with the sources, which show him alive in 1934.

He was born into a priest's family. In 1915 he graduated from the Tver seminary. From 1915 to 1918 he was psalm-⁠reader at the cathedral of Ostashkov, from 1918 to 1921 a schoolteacher at Bezhetsk, and in 1921 he was ordained priest. From 1921 to 1929 he served at the church of the village of Zaluzhane, in the Molokovo district. In 1929 the church was closed, and his wife and some of the peasants asked him to stop serving. He answered that he was no traitor to God, and that one who crosses the sea drowns at the shore.

From 1929 to 1 October 1930 he served at the church of Bely Pogost, and then from 1 October 1930 to 12 March 1931 at Boshorovo. To spare his family persecution, he allowed his wife to seek a divorce. The family stayed in Zaluzhane. In the village of Boshorovo there lived nuns from monasteries closed earlier, and the services were held according to the monastic order. The priest sometimes came by night to Zaluzhane to see his family and parishioners. Neighbours sometimes informed the secret police plenipotentiary. The militiaman sent to check would ask whether the priest was there and leave at once, not wishing to arrest him. His wife was Euphrosyne Mikhailovna, and their children were Nina and Vera.

On 12 March 1931 he was arrested by the secret police, on the denunciation of neighbours, together with his parishioners, accused of speaking against the collective farms and of forming a group under his leadership. He did not admit guilt, and neither did the arrested parishioners. By decision of the secret police troika of 20 April 1931 he was sentenced to five years in a labour camp, and four parishioners received different sentences. His family was put out of their house and their property was confiscated. His daughters Nina and Vera were then eight and four years old. After the arrest his wife and children settled at Bezhetsk, with the priest's mother. His wife had to beg, because the wife of a priest would not be taken on for work. In 1937 her legs became paralysed.

From the camp he sent several letters to his family. In the last, of 28 July 1934, he said that he was to be sent from the Vishera camp in an unknown direction. By then he was gravely ill with tuberculosis and died soon afterwards. The exact date of death is not known. He was rehabilitated by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of 16 January 1989.

He was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, for veneration throughout the Church, by the act of the Jubilee Council of Bishops of 13 to 16 August 2000 in Moscow.