John of Aglomazov

Holy Martyr John of Aglomazov (the second of this name) is commemorated also among those killed beside the priest Nicholas Probatov in the village of Aglomazovo in the Tambov province. The Azbyka page, common to all of them, mentions him only by name, "John", among the peasants shot.

Father Nicholas Probatov, born in 1874, served from 1906 at Aglomazovo, where he built a school for two hundred children and was a beloved preacher. After in February 1918 the peasants rose against mobilization and were scattered by machine-⁠gun fire, a punitive detachment came to the village. The priest would not flee. The detachment settled in a brick house beside the church, and shut the arrested in its cellar. The list of those to be arrested had been drawn up by a village teacher, Peter Filippovich, an unbeliever who disliked the church and the priest. The commander struck the women off the list, except Agatha, who was alone in the world. Father Nicholas was beaten on the soles with rods and mocked for his last service, on the feast of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God, but he answered: "Christ suffered though without sin, and we suffer for our sins."

In the evening eighteen condemned, who had confessed, were led to the river Tsna and divided into two groups. The priest raised his hands and prayed aloud that the executioners be forgiven. At the first volley he fell, then rose and went on praying, and the second volley killed him. Thirteen died. Those killed were the warden Kosma Yegorovich, Victor Krasnov, Naum and Philip, father and son, John, Paul, Andrew, Paul, Basil, Alexis, another John and Agatha. John is among them, with no further detail on the page.

The bodies were fetched the next day. The priest was buried at night in the cemetery, with quiet chanting, by priests from the neighbouring villages, after the authorities had refused him a grave beside the church. The Church commemorates the martyrs of Aglomazov on 11 November, in the new style.