John of Aglomazov

Holy Martyr John of Aglomazov is one of the peasants of the village of Aglomazovo in the Tambov province killed in 1918 together with their priest, Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Probatov. The Azbyka page names him only in the list of those killed: "Ivan" among the other peasants, with no further detail about him.

Father Nicholas Probatov was born in 1874 in the village of Ignatyevo near Kadom, in a priest's family. He studied at the theological school in Kasimov and at the Tambov Seminary, in great material want. He married Varvara, a priest's daughter, and after the wedding they made a pilgrimage to Sarov. Ordained priest in 1899, he received in 1906 the parish of Aglomazovo, with its wooden church of the Theophany. He served with fervour and said that his altar was a corner of paradise. He built a spacious school for two hundred children, preached and taught the Law of God, and took no payment for the services. In the First World War he went as a regimental priest, though he had three small children, and in 1917 he returned home.

In February 1918, when the Bolsheviks announced mobilization into the Red Guard, the peasants of Aglomazovo decided not to enlist and to march to the district town, twenty-⁠five versts away, to drive out the Bolshevik authorities. They asked the priest for a moleben for the road. After the moleben he gave a short sermon and ended by saying that he blessed them to go against the persecutors of the Church of Christ. The peasants, armed with axes and pitchforks, set out, but on the way many changed their minds, and when those who remained drew near the town, a burst of machine-⁠gun fire from the belfry scattered them. The Bolsheviks forgave no one and sent a punitive detachment to the village.

Father Nicholas did not flee. Arrested, he was beaten with rods on the soles of his feet and made to dance, but he answered that he had never danced and would not do so before his death. Seventeen people arrested with him were led in the evening toward the river Tsna and, after they had confessed, shot. The priest said aloud: "Lord, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." The second volley killed him, as he was praying "It is truly meet to bless you, O Theotokos." Of the eighteen, thirteen died; the rest crawled in the night to the houses and were hidden by the people. Those killed were the church warden Kosma Yegorovich, the peasants Victor Krasnov, Naum and Philip (father and son), John, Paul, Andrew, Paul, Basil, Alexis, John and Agatha.

The next day the peasants came to take up the dead. The priest's body was stiff, with the hands raised at the last prayer and the fingers joined for blessing, and the people said: "Father blesses us even dead." The authorities refused the request to bury him by the church but allowed the cemetery. The burial was done by night, with the priests of the neighbouring villages, Paul Maltsev and Maxim.

The Church commemorates them on 11 November, in the new style, and also on the movable day of the synaxis of the new martyrs and on 23 June, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Ryazan.