John Smirnov

Holy Hieromartyr John Smirnov, a deacon, was born on 16 March 1887 in the village of Karacharovo in the Moscow district, in the family of the peasant Jacob Smirnov. He was schooled at the theological school, then between 1910 and 1918 served in the army as a clerk, with the rank of senior non-⁠commissioned officer. In 1926 he was ordained deacon for the Dormition church in the village of Kosino, Ukhtomsky district, Moscow region.

On 27 November 1937, at the height of the persecution, Deacon John was arrested and imprisoned at Taganka in Moscow. On 30 November the decision to bring him to account for counterrevolutionary activity was read to him, but he refused to sign it, because he did not agree with it. The investigator told him that the materials showed that he was hostile to Soviet power. He answered that he did not confirm it and that he had not been a counterrevolutionary and had done no counterrevolutionary work. About his fellow servants he said that he could say nothing, since he had noticed nothing.

On 7 December 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years in a corrective labour camp and he was sent to the Far East. The deacon John Smirnov died on 18 August 1939 in a camp in the Amur region and was buried in an unknown grave. The Church commemorates him on 18 August, the day of his death, in the new style, and on the movable days of the synaxis of the new martyrs and of the Saints of Moscow.