John Kosinsky

Holy Hieromartyr John Kosinsky, a priest, was born on 12 April 1887 in Moscow, in the family of the priest Vladimir Alexeevich Kossinsky and Evdokia Fyodorovna. He graduated from the theological school at Perervino and from 1909 was a teacher at the church school; in 1914 he was ordained deacon. In 1919 he was mobilized into the rear militia of the Red Army, where he was set to heavy work. In 1920 he was ordained priest and served at the church of the Holy Trinity in the village of Zavorovo, in the Bronnitsy district of the Moscow province.

He was first arrested in 1927, accused of violating article 168 of the penal code, which threatened up to two years of prison for "appropriation, that is, retention for gain, of another's property entrusted for a specific purpose". In this case the priest was tried because he had sold his own cow, which the authorities had listed for unpaid taxes. He was sentenced to one month in a corrective labour camp. He was arrested a second time in 1930, on a charge of anti-⁠collective-⁠farm agitation. After two and a half months in custody he was freed and served at the church of the Holy Trinity until his last arrest.

In December 1937 militiamen who had been his pupils warned him that he would be arrested and advised him to go away for a while. Father John thanked them for the warning, but said that it was not fitting for an Orthodox priest and father of a family to flee and hide, and he went nowhere. At the beginning of 1938 two informer priests, from Saltykovo and from Davydovo, gave the NKVD the required testimony, and after his arrest were false witnesses, signing the protocols prepared by the investigation.

Father John was arrested on 26 January 1938 and imprisoned at Taganka. Almost at once the interrogations began. The investigator told him in turn that he carried on anti-⁠Soviet agitation against the collective farms, that he praised the enemies of the people and that he had lied in all his answers. The priest repeated each time: "I do not admit guilt of anti-⁠Soviet agitation, such facts did not exist." On 11 February the NKVD troika sentenced him to death. The priest John Kosinsky was shot on 26 February 1938 at the Butovo firing range and buried in an unknown common grave.

The Church commemorates him on 26 February, 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.