John Mozhirin

Holy Hieromartyr John Mozhirin, a priest, was born in 1870 in the village of Sofino in the Tambov province, in the family of the peasant Mikhail Mozhirin. After secondary school Ivan Mikhailovich was ordained priest. In 1931 he was arrested and imprisoned in a camp. After his return he served at the church in the village of Staro-⁠Belokurikha in the Altai Region. He was shot on 29 July 1937, together with Holy Hieromartyr Jacob (Maskaev), archbishop of Barnaul, with Protopresbyter Peter Gavrilov and with the venerable martyr Theodore (Nikitin), a monk.

Archbishop Jacob had been born in 1879 at Uralsk, had graduated from the Orenburg Seminary in 1901, had served as a priest in the village of Zobovo, had been ordained bishop of Orsk in 1923, had passed through exile at Samara and through dioceses at Ostashkov and Balashov, had been sentenced in 1930 to the camp at Solovki, and in 1933 had been assigned to Barnaul, where in 1935 he was raised to the rank of archbishop. Father Peter Gavrilov, born in 1870, a priest since 1895, had been raised to protopresbyter, exiled in 1929 to Narym and, returned, had served at Biysk.

Father John, ill, had been released from the camp as unfit for work and, beginning on 15 July 1933, served in the Smolensk district, in the villages of Novo-⁠Smolenskoe, Smolenskoe and Staro-⁠Tyryshkino. On 4 September 1936, in a letter to the priest Daniil Noskov, he complained that since coming to the parish of Belokurikha a heavy impression had weighed on him, then things had seemed to settle and, on Sundays and feasts, the living word of the pastor had sounded under the vaults of the church, but now the church was being demanded for storing grain, as in the year before, and Providence was leaving him again without service. On 23 September 1936 he was arrested and imprisoned at Biysk.

The authorities accused him of being an active participant in the insurgent counterrevolutionary group of the dean Daniil Noskov, at whose head Archbishop Jacob was said to stand. At the interrogations he said that he did not admit guilt, that he belonged to no anti-⁠Soviet group, and that he had had with Noskov only talk about the believers becoming ever fewer. On 2 October 1936 he was confronted with Stepan Kashcheev, who testified that Mozhirin had told him that war with Japan would soon break out and that life would be easier. Father John answered that Kashcheev was the community's envoy to ask for the opening of the church, that they spoke only of church matters, such as raising money for repairs, and that he had even said that a war against the Soviet Union could not be, since it is strongly armed. He denied everything, and in hospital, in 1937, he refused to admit guilt of any act. In the spring of 1937 some of the accused began to say before the court that they had given their testimony under threats and pressure; on 9 April the session was postponed and the file sent for further investigation.

On 25 July 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced to death Archbishop Jacob (Maskaev), Protopresbyter Peter (Gavrilov), the priest John (Mozhirin), the monk Theodore (Nikitin), Ivan Protopopov and others. The archbishop, the two priests and the monk were shot on 29 July 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave. The layman Ivan Protopopov was shot on 4 August 1937.

The Church commemorates him on 29 July, the day of his death, in the new style, on 26 September (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Altai, and on the movable day of the synaxis of the new martyrs.