John Nikolsky

Holy Hieromartyr John Nikolsky, a priest, in the world John Nikolaevich Nikolsky, was born on 8 October 1868 in the village of Kladbishchi in the Sergach district of the Nizhny Novgorod province, in the family of a priest. In 1891 he graduated from the Nizhny Novgorod Theological Seminary and was ordained priest. In 1933 he spent three and a half months under arrest. In the last years of his life he served at the church of the Transfiguration in the settlement of Karpovka, on the edge of the city of Gorky.

On 6 August 1937 he was arrested together with a group of priests and laymen of Gorky and imprisoned in the city jail. He was accused of taking part in a "counterrevolutionary fascist organization", said to be led by Metropolitan Theophanes (Tulyakov) of Gorky. He did not admit guilt and refused to testify against others. On 21 September 1937 the special troika attached to the UNKVD of the Gorky region sentenced him to death. He was shot on 4 October 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave at the Bugrovskoe cemetery in Gorky. He was glorified by the jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Church in the year 2000.

The Church commemorates him on 4 October, 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 Nizhny Novgorod.