John Kesariysky

Holy Hieromartyr John Kesariysky, a priest, was born on 30 January 1878 in the village of Odishevo in the Kineshma district of the Kostroma province, in the family of the priest Nikanor Kesariysky. He finished the Seminary and in 1903 the Moscow Theological Academy. In 1904 he was ordained priest and served in churches of the Moscow diocese, latterly at the church of the Vladimir icon of the Mother of God in the village of Bykovo, in the Ramenskoye district. He was shot on 16 November 1937.

The Azbyka page tells the case of the priests John Kesariysky and Peter Kosminkov and the deacon Simeon Krechkov, arrested in the village of Bykovo. Between 1 and 3 November 1937 there were arrested and imprisoned at Taganka the priests, the deacon, the church warden Evdokia Safronova and the members of the church council Peter Piskarev-⁠Molokov and Alexander, Ekaterina and Dmitri Chilikin. At the interrogations, which began on the very day of the arrest, Father John said that he knew the priest and deacon with whom he served, the warden and some members of the council, with whom he spoke only about church matters. The investigator told him that he was one of the organizers of the church group in Bykovo, then demanded that he admit having discussed a terrorist act against the chairman of the collective farm, which the priest rejected. On the charge of slander against Soviet power, the father explained that he might have been misunderstood, when once, over tea in the watchman's lodge, he had told a case from the newspaper: a district chief went into a collective-⁠farm stable, saw a broken collar, put it on a farmer's neck and told him that he had worn the collar before and would wear it now. He said that he had told it as an event, without slander. He also said that he knew no counterrevolutionary group and none of its participants.

The priest Peter Kosminkov was born on 4 January 1887 in the village of Pakhrino in the Podolsk district, in the family of the psalmist Vasily Petrovich Kosminkov. He graduated from the theological school at Perervino in 1901 and from the Moscow Seminary in 1907, was a teacher, in 1910 was ordained priest, and from 1918 served at the church of the Vladimir Mother of God in Bykovo. He denied any counterrevolutionary activity and said that the meetings of the church council were held in the church and concerned only practical matters. The deacon Simeon Krechkov was born in 1876 in the village of Ponizovye in the Vereya district, in the family of the psalmist Nikolai Krechkov, finished the Seminary in 1900, was a teacher, and in 1903 was ordained deacon at the church in Bykovo, where he served until his arrest. He too admitted no guilt and would not accuse himself or others.

On 15 November 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced the priests John Kesariysky and Peter Kosminkov and the deacon Simeon Krechkov to death. Alexander Chilikin and his son Dmitri received ten years in a camp, and Peter Piskarev-⁠Molokov, Evdokia Safronova and Ekaterina Chilikina eight years. The three clerics were shot on 16 November 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave at Butovo. Evdokia Safronova died in the camp on 25 August 1938, and Peter Piskarev-⁠Molokov on 9 April 1938.

The Church commemorates Saint John on 16 November, the day of his death, in the new style, on 10 December in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Radonezh, and on the movable days of the synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo and of the Saints of Moscow.