John Dneprovsky

Holy Hieromartyr John Dneprovsky, a priest, was born on 18 September 1875 in the village of Stary Chirchim, Kameshkir volost, Kuznetsk district (now the Penza region), in the family of the sexton Mikhail Dneprovsky. In 1891 he left, at his request, the first class of the Saratov Seminary. On 5 November 1892 he became psalmist at the church of the Kazan Mother of God in the village of Ulybovka, Volsk district, and taught at the church school, then singing at the literacy school. In 1899 he was made a reader. In 1898 he married Alexandra, and in time they had four children.

On 3 December 1905 he was presented by Saint Hermogenes, bishop of Saratov and Tsaritsyn, and on 1 January 1906 was ordained deacon by Bishop Palladius of Volsk, at the Theophany church in the village of Tersa, where he was catechist at the church school. He was ordained priest and served at the church of the Holy Trinity in the village of Polchaninovka until 1929 (the page gives the start of his service as 1911 or 1914). In the autumn of 1919 he was arrested by the Cheka, accused of keeping two hand grenades under the holy table; after 18 days he was released. In 1929 he ceased public ministry. He then lived at Novouzensk, where he worked as an observer at the Lower Volga meteorological station. His son Nicholas told that in the early 1920s his father had bought a wooden house at the edge of Saratov, so that the sons could study in the city. At Novouzensk the nun Akilina (Shilina) gave him shelter, and nearby lived the priest Alexei Popov.

On 8 December 1937 he was arrested by the local militia, accused of spreading slander about Stalin's constitution, and imprisoned at Saratov. The real cause was his protest against the closing of churches and the persecution of believers. At the search only his passport was found. The next day he was interrogated. He denied having slandered the constitution, having said that at elections all would be driven to vote as they were told, that Soviet power would be overthrown by Japan and Germany, and that he gathered believers at his home. He admitted only one thing: that Soviet power had destroyed all the churches and exiled the priests innocently. The only one with whom he kept close was the priest Alexei Popov, with whom he discussed how to bring religion out of its impasse, since the authorities were finishing it off.

The same day the investigation was closed, and on 10 December the NKVD troika of the Saratov region sentenced him to death. The sentence was carried out on 15 December 1937, at Saratov. The place of burial remained unknown. The priest Alexei Popov had been shot earlier, on 21 September 1937. In 1961 his son Nicholas asked for his rehabilitation. In the file the testimony of three witnesses was found which had been the basis of the accusation, but only one of the three was still alive, and at the re-⁠questioning it became clear that she had given no testimony in 1937 and had not even known him. By a decision of 29 October 1961 of the Saratov regional court he was rehabilitated, with a note that the case had been fabricated with gross violations. The children, however, did not learn their father's fate until 1991. On 17 July 2002 the Holy Synod decided on his glorification.

The Church commemorates him on 15 December, in the new style, and on the movable days of the synaxis of the new martyrs and of the Saints of Saratov.