John Khrenov

Holy Hieromartyr John Khrenov, a deacon, was born on 3 September 1888 in Moscow, in the family of Semyon Khrenov, an employee of the Taganka prison. The family was very religious. From childhood he went to pray at the Novospassky monastery, near his house, sang in the choir with the monks and at some services was a reader. In 1907 he finished the pedagogical institute but did not become a teacher, since he felt no calling. He was an accountant at Taganka, and then the hieroschemamonk Aristocles, a good acquaintance of his, helped him become an accountant at the Moscow Merchants' Bank. In 1911 he married Evdokia, a girl from a pious family, a parishioner of the Novospassky monastery, where they met.

After the nationalization of the banks, in 1917, he worked as an accountant in state institutions. After the closing of the Novospassky monastery he went, like all its parishioners, to the church of the Forty Martyrs, where he was proposed to receive the rank of deacon. He asked counsel and blessing of Protopresbyter Alexei Mechev, at the church of Saint Nicholas on Maroseika, and in 1921 Bishop Hilarion (Troitsky) of Vereya ordained him deacon at the church of the Forty Martyrs. There he led the Sunday school, served nearly a year, then left when quarrels began in the church, and served for a time at the church of the Holy Trinity in Kotelniki. All the time he remained an accountant. His family, his wife and daughter, lived in harmony; in their free time on weekdays they read spiritual books, above all the lives of the saints, one life for each day, and on Sundays and feasts they went to church.

At the beginning of the 1930s the OGPU summoned him and told him that he was a good worker and that he was proposed to be their agent and report on all those with whom he worked. He answered that he could not, since he held the rank of deacon. "Then give up the rank." "God gave, God will take away," he answered. They did not press further, and one said: "We could use more men as steadfast as this." In 1937 a denunciation was made that many clergy came to his flat, and at the search the certificate of his ordination as deacon was found, and one said with satisfaction: "Here is one more case." At the interrogations Father John confirmed that he still held the rank of deacon and did not wish to give it up, and on the charges of counterrevolutionary activity he declared himself innocent.

He was arrested together with Archbishop Dimitri (Dobroserdov), Archimandrite Ambrose (Astakhov), Hegumen Pachomius (Turkevich), the monk Barlaam (Efimov), the nun Tatiana (Besfamilnaya) and the laymen Nicholas Rein, Maria Volnukhina and Nadezhda Azhgerevich. Archbishop Dimitri, born in 1864, was a former bishop of Mozhaisk, of Kozlov and of Pyatigorsk, and at the interrogation he admitted no guilt and would not denounce anyone. Ambrose, born in 1860, led a life of ascetic labour after the closing of his monastery and guided his spiritual sons and daughters. Pachomius, born in 1864, had struggled at the Zlatoust monastery. Barlaam, born in 1903, had received monastic tonsure secretly in 1935. Tatiana, born in 1866, had lived from childhood in the Nativity monastery in Moscow. Nicholas Rein, born in 1892, a research scientist, had sheltered an Athonite hieromonk. Maria Volnukhina, born in 1876, was honoured by the faithful for her ascetic life and foresight. Nadezhda Azhgerevich, born in 1877, lived among the nuns of the closed monasteries. On 17 October 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced them to death, except Barlaam, who received ten years in prison and soon died in Komi. On 21 October 1937 the other eight, among them the deacon John Khrenov, were shot at Butovo and buried in an unknown common grave.

The Church commemorates the deacon John on 21 October, the day of his death, in the new style, and on the movable days of the synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo and of the Saints of Moscow.