John Pashin

Holy Hieromartyr John Pashin was Bishop of Rylsk, vicar of the diocese of Kursk, and was shot on 11 March 1938 at Chibyu in Komi, as a camp prisoner.

Youth and priesthood

He was born on 8 May 1881 in the town of Petrikov in Minsk province, in the family of the priest Dimitry Pashin and Nadezhda, daughter of the priest Basil Zavitnevich. His father died when he was three, and his mother took him to her parents at Skrygalov; his grandfather, Archpriest Basil, took the father's place. In 1890 he was sent to study at state expense at the theological school of Slutsk, then in 1895 at the Minsk seminary, which he finished in 1901. He married Antonina, daughter of a merchant of Vyshny Volochyok. In October 1901 he was ordained deacon and priest for the church of the Protection in the village of Knyaz-⁠Ozero. In 1903 he took over his grandfather's parish, at the church of Saint Nicholas in Skrygalov, and finished the chapel in memory of the holy martyr Macarius, Metropolitan of Kiev, killed by the Tatars near Skrygalov in 1497. The chapel was consecrated on 1 May 1905, he founded the Brotherhood of Saint Macarius and opened a girls' school; in 1908 the commemoration of the saint gathered some ten thousand pilgrims.

From 1909 he was rector at the church of Saint George in Prilepy, Minsk district. He opened a parish school, received in the church a copy of the Iveron icon of the Mother of God painted on Athos, founded a temperance society with a statute, hymn and banner, and raised a large stone church (1912-1916). In 1915 his wife died, at thirty-⁠two, leaving him two children. In 1916 he enrolled at the Petrograd Theological Academy; Bishop Mitrophan of Minsk called him one of the best of the clergy. After the revolution the academy closed and he returned to Prilepy.

The bishop

On 7 April 1923 he was consecrated at Minsk Bishop of Mozyr-⁠Turov, vicar of Minsk, by Metropolitan Melchisedek and two bishops. He lived at Mozyr, then at Petrikov, and visited the churches often, teaching the children. In 1926 he was arrested and, on 26 March, expelled from Petrikov; on Great Thursday he served for the last time at home, and the people followed him to the landing stage and then into the cold water after the barge that carried him off. He settled at Loev, where he was accused of governing the diocese in secret, and on 18 September 1926 he was sentenced to three years of exile in the Zyrian land. After the exile Metropolitan Sergius appointed him Bishop of Rylsk, vicar of Kursk.

On 28 August 1932 he was arrested at Kursk, in the case of the organization "Zealots of the Church" in which many clergy were accused. He wrote that he knew the priest Constantine Odintsov of Rylsk as an honest man and that both stood on the position of Metropolitan Sergius. On 7 December 1932 the Special Council of the OGPU sentenced him to ten years in a camp. In the camp he kept up a correspondence with Tatiana Nikolaevna Grimblit, known for her help to the exiled clergy.

In 1937, in the Ukhtpechlag camp, a priest was accused of hanging crosses in the trees of the park; witnesses said that the bishop had visited him. On 2 December 1937 the bishop was searched and arrested. He denied hanging crosses, said that he had received the prayer books in parcels and kept them for personal use, and that around the feast he had not worked at Chibyu, being at the sanatorium. On 5 January 1938 an NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and Bishop John was shot on 11 March 1938 at Chibyu in Komi and buried in an unknown place.

The saint is commemorated on 11 March (movable) and, in the new style, on 7 February (movable) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, on 11 July (movable) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Belarus and on 1 August in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kursk.