John Plotnikov

Holy Hieromartyr John Plotnikov, a deacon, was born in 1864 in the family of a church servant of the village of Kataiskoe, Kamyshlov district (today the town of Kataysk, Kurgan region). In 1880 he finished the theological school at Dolmatovo, after which he served as psalmist at the church of the Holy Trinity in Kataiskoe. He collaborated with the Ural Society of Lovers of Natural Science, and for many years of collecting "climatic observations" he received, at the society's request, an archpastoral certificate.

In 1906 he was ordained deacon and sent to serve in the parish of the Meeting of the Lord at the Staropyshminsk works. Father John served the Lord faithfully. He did not renounce the faith of his fathers even when the Bolsheviks came to power, who plundered the treasures of the churches, closed churches and killed priests and devout laypeople. On 30 June 1918, on Mount Vysokaya, Father John was cruelly killed by the Bolsheviks who had come to power, as a "representative of the reactionary class". All this was gathered, bit by bit, by the parishioners of the church of the Meeting of the Lord. Today the place of Father John's grave in the cemetery of the Staropyshminsk settlement has also been restored.

In 2000 he was glorified among the locally venerated saints of the Yekaterinburg diocese. On the day of his commemoration, at Staropyshminsk the festal service is held, then a procession to Mount Vysokaya, where he received death. At the foot of the mountain there is a spring restored by the parishioners, in honour of the icon of the Mother of God "Softening of Evil Hearts". From the spring the parishioners climb the mountain, by a path paved with stones, singing molebens. On 11 July 2006, on the place of burial, a veneration cross and a plaque were set up in memory of the saint and of the parishioners Dmitri Paznikov, Gabriel Chesnokov and Alexander Ustyuzhaninov, killed the same day. The faithful and clergy carried the cross on their shoulders up the mountain, nearly nine hundred metres high. The water of the spring flows at the foot of the mountain right from the cross that was set up. At the base of the cross is a granite plaque with the date of the martyric death of Father John. From the mountain one sees the restored church of the Meeting of the Lord and the whole settlement of Staropyshminsk, and its cross shines from afar.

The Church commemorates him on 12 August, in the new style, on 11 February in the Synaxis of the Saints of Yekaterinburg, and on the movable day of the synaxis of the new martyrs.