John Protopopov

Holy Martyr John Protopopov, a layman, was shot on 4 August 1937 in the Altai Region. The Azbyka page commemorates him together with Holy Hieromartyr Jacob (Maskaev), archbishop of Barnaul, with Protopresbyter Peter Gavrilov, the priest John Mozhirin and the venerable martyr Theodore (Nikitin), a monk, and gives no further detail of his life. Of Ivan Protopopov it says only that he was arrested, as a layman, with them.

Archbishop Jacob had been born in 1879 at Uralsk, was a priest, then bishop of Orsk from 1923, passed through exile and the camp at Solovki and was sent in 1933 to Barnaul, where in 1935 he was raised to the rank of archbishop. In the autumn of 1936 the NKVD of the Altai Region moved to the destruction of the clergy of the Barnaul and Biysk dioceses. On 23 September the dean Daniil Noskov and the layman Hector Zakharin were arrested, and on 29 September the priest Nicholas Palmov; they signed the statements required by the investigators. On their basis an indictment was drawn up which spoke of a counterrevolutionary insurgent organization, led by Bishop Jacob and Noskov, with six cells and twenty-⁠eight participants, which was said to have prepared cadres for an armed rising at the time of an invasion. On 29 October 1936 Archbishop Jacob was arrested and imprisoned at Biysk. With him were arrested also the priests Peter Gavrilov and John Mozhirin, the monk Theodore (Nikitin) and the layman Ivan Protopopov. All denied the charges.

On 25 July 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced to death Archbishop Jacob, Protopresbyter Peter, the priest John, the monk Theodore, Ivan Protopopov and others. The archbishop, the two priests and the monk were shot on 29 July 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave. The layman Ivan Protopopov was shot on 4 August 1937, a week after them.

The Church commemorates him on 29 July, together with them, in the new style.