John Orlov

Holy Hieromartyr John Orlov, a priest, was born on 1 November 1881 in the village of Lyubuchany in the Podolsk district of the Moscow province, in the family of the priest John Petrovich Orlov, who served at the cemetery church of the Resurrection in Podolsk. In 1897 he finished the theological school at Perervino, and in 1903 the Moscow Seminary, was ordained priest and served at the church of the Holy Trinity in the village of Troitskoe, Zvenigorod district, near the town of Voskresensk, called Istra in Soviet times.

In 1937 two priests served at the church of the Holy Trinity, Alexander Mashkov and John Orlov, and the deacon Peter Troitsky. The church warden was Mikhail Stepanovich Stroev. On 7 November 1937 the NKVD arrested Father Alexander Mashkov and imprisoned him at Taganka in Moscow. Unable to bear the hardships of prison, he gave testimony against his colleagues, falsely accusing them. On 18 November 1937 the priest John Orlov, the deacon Peter Troitsky and the warden Mikhail Stroev were arrested and imprisoned at Taganka. The same day the interrogations began.

The investigator told Father John that he was arrested as a participant in a counterrevolutionary group. The priest answered that he belonged to no such group. Asked whether he knew Mashkov, he answered that he knew him well from 1911. When Mashkov's testimony was read to him, he said that he did not confirm it. For several days in a row he was interrogated, but the father categorically refused to admit guilt. On 27 November 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years in a camp. The priest John Orlov died on 7 March 1938 in the Mariinsk camp in the Kemerovo region and was buried in an unknown grave.

The Church commemorates him on 7 March, the day of his death, in the new style, on 29 August (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kuzbass, and on the movable days of the synaxis of the new martyrs and of the Saints of Moscow.