John Popov

Holy Hieromartyr John Popov, a priest, in the world John Petrovich Popov, was born on 20 June 1863 in the village of Burdukovo in the Gryazovets district of the Vologda province, in the family of the deacon of the church of Saint Nicholas. In 1883 he graduated from the theological school in Vologda and two classes of the Vologda Seminary, but for family reasons could not continue. On 25 October 1885 he was appointed psalmist at the church of the Transfiguration in the village of Shezham, Yarensk district. Between 1889 and 1900 he taught, without pay, church singing at the zemstvo school in Aikino. On 30 May 1901 he was appointed psalmist at the church of the Mother of God in the village of Vazhkurya, Ust-⁠Sysolsk district, and confirmed in the post on 28 August 1906. He was catechist and teacher of singing at the parish school and at the zemstvo school in Vazhkurya.

In 1922 he was ordained priest and served at the church of Saint John the Baptist in the village of Kerchomya, in the Ust-⁠Kulom district, in the Komi (Zyryan) autonomous region. He was the last priest in Kerchomya in the twentieth century. In 1932 he was arrested on a charge of concealing church valuables, but the case was closed for lack of guilt. On 2 September 1937 he was arrested on a charge of "systematic counterrevolutionary agitation against the measures of Soviet power and the setting up of collective farms, spreading slanderous rumours, regret at the shooting of enemies of the people" and imprisoned in the jail at Syktyvkar. On 21 September 1937 the special troika attached to the UNKVD of the Komi ASSR sentenced him to death. He was shot on 23 September 1937 in the environs of the city of Syktyvkar.

The Azbyka page says that he was glorified by the Council of Bishops of 13 to 16 August 2000 and, in another version of the life, that he was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia by decision of the Holy Synod of 6 October 2001. The Church commemorates him on 23 September, the day of his death, in the new style, on 11 February in the Synaxis of the Saints of Komi, and on the movable day of the synaxis of the new martyrs.