John Kozyrev

Holy Hieromartyr John Kozyrev, a priest, was born on 16 January 1885 in the village of Pozharye, Sandovo district, Tver province, where his father, Alexei Kozyrev, was a priest. He was shot on 3 November 1937, together with his brother, Holy Hieromartyr Basil, born in 1889. In 1904 he finished the Tver Seminary and was a teacher at the theological school in Krasny Kholm until 1910, then returned to Pozharye as teacher at the village school. In 1911 his father died, and on 9 October Ivan Alexeevich was ordained priest for the church of his native village.

His brother Basil studied at the theological school in Bezhetsk, did five classes at the Tver Seminary and entered the Demidov law lyceum in Yaroslavl, but could not finish it for lack of money. Between 1914 and 1919 he was a teacher in a village school, then an accountant and instructor at the consumer union of Rybinsk, until 1921, when he decided to become a priest. He was ordained in 1921 for a church in Bezhetsk. In 1930 he was arrested, sentenced to three years and sent to Solovki, then to the Svir camp, from which he returned to Bezhetsk in 1932. In 1929 their brother, Bishop Gregory, had been appointed bishop of Bezhetsk, and by his prayer and example he raised the spirit of the clergy and laity, many of them discouraged by the pitiless persecution. The same year Father John hid from the inventory of the church the chalice, the diskos, the spoon, two small plates and the altar Gospel in its silver cover, but the authorities found and took everything, and he was arrested and fined three hundred roubles for collecting gifts for the church.

On 16 February 1934 the priests John and Basil Kozyrev were arrested, together with the priest Sergius Kordyukov, who had testified against everyone. Father John accepted the investigator's proposals and signed, on 22 February, a protocol in which he admitted guilt of belonging to a counterrevolutionary church group in Bezhetsk, which was said to have met in a watchman's lodge after the service for the tenth anniversary of Bishop Gregory's consecration and to have spoken of poor supply and of the collective farms. Father Basil did not admit guilt and said that he had wished to become a priest for the strengthening of the Orthodox faith, because he was dissatisfied with the stopping of religious teaching in the schools. The OGPU troika sentenced Sergius Kordyukov, Basil and John Kozyrev to three years in a camp. They were sent from Vladivostok to Kolyma, where work and life were so hard that the brothers barely survived, and Father Sergius died in the camp.

At the end of October 1936 they returned to Bezhetsk and entered the service of the church. They met their brother, Bishop Gregory, who asked them in detail about the camp and the investigation. They told him that the investigator had accused them of creating a counterrevolutionary church organization, with Bishop Gregory in the role of leader. In July 1937 Metropolitan Sergius appointed Bishop Gregory bishop of Barnaul. On 17 July the brothers saw him to the train, and he blessed his flock for the last time; on arrival in Barnaul he was arrested.

In September 1937 the brothers John and Basil were arrested again. The experience of the 1934 investigation had taught them that the investigation rests on lies, that the investigators stop at nothing and that not a word of theirs is to be believed. The only way out was to be manly, not to admit and not to sign a lie. On 21 September Father John was interrogated. He said that he had burned the correspondence from the camp, for fear of being arrested, after the arrest of Gregory Kozyrev the year before, and that he and his brother Basil kept the closest ties with Gregory, but spoke only of family matters. He denied giving sermons with counterrevolutionary comments and spreading rumours of war. He did admit, however, that he explained the arrests of priests by the wish of Soviet power to remove the unwanted from the elections to the Supreme Soviet, and agreed with the investigator that this was slander against Stalin's constitution. On 1 October, at the last interrogation, he said firmly that he did not belong to a counterrevolutionary group and had made no agitation. Father Basil too denied all the charges.

On 1 November 1937 the NKVD troika of the Kalinin region sentenced the priests John and Basil Kozyrev to death. They were shot on 3 November 1937. They were numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000. The Church commemorates him on 3 November, the day of his death, in the new style, and on the movable days of the synaxis of the new martyrs and of the Saints of Tver.