John Perebaskin

Holy Martyr John Perebaskin, in the world Ivan Pavlovich Perebaskin, was born in 1862 in the family of the deacon Pavel Perebaskin, of the Kostroma diocese. In 1880 he finished the Kostroma Seminary, in 1884 the Theological Academy in Saint Petersburg, with the degree of candidate in theology, and was sent as assistant superintendent of the theological school in Soligalich. In 1897 he became superintendent of this school. Besides his duties as superintendent he taught at various times church singing, Russian church and civil history, geography and the Greek language. In 1915 the book he had written appeared, "Rules of Conduct of the Pupils of the Soligalich Theological School".

The Azbyka page tells his passion together with that of the holy hieromartyrs Joseph Smirnov, Vladimir Ilyinsky and John Kastorsky. In February 1918, after the decree on the separation of the Church from the state, a protest procession took place in Soligalich, in which John Perebaskin also took part. A few days later representatives of the Bolshevik Soviet announced that they would requisition the bread of the nearby Theodorovsky convent; the faithful gathered to defend it, and a crowd of some six hundred people went to the Soviet building. Shots were fired from the building, a man was killed, and the chairman of the Soviet, Vyluzgin, was beaten by the crowd, wounded and killed at night in hospital by armed men. After a week a punitive detachment of three hundred and fifty Red Guards arrived from Kostroma. Fifty-⁠two people were arrested, ninety-⁠five in all, without any inquiry into the circumstances.

On 22 February (7 March) 1918, at night, there were shot, among others, Protopresbyter Joseph Smirnov, the priest Vladimir Ilyinsky, aged eighty-⁠five, the deacon John Kastorsky and the superintendent John Perebaskin. The bodies of those killed were thrown in a heap into a pit and were not given to the relatives. On the place of the common grave a cross and a fence were set up, torn down in the 1930s and restored in 1996.

The Church commemorates him on 5 February in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kostroma, on the movable day of the synaxis of the new martyrs and on 7 March (a movable day), in the new style.