John Smirnov

Holy Hieromartyr John Smirnov, a priest, in the world Ivan Vasilievich Smirnov, was born in 1873 in the village of Novaya Racheika in the Samara province, in a priest's family. After the Theological Seminary he was ordained priest and served in churches of the Samara diocese. In 1937 Father John was arrested together with Archbishop Alexander (Trapitsyn) and other priests.

With Archbishop Alexander twenty-⁠three priests and two laymen were arrested. The archbishop was accused of having "united in Kuibyshev all the priests without a place, above all those returned from exile, creating for them authority among the faithful as 'sufferers for the faith', which was used for anti-⁠Soviet insurgent and counterrevolutionary fascist agitation". Neither the archbishop nor the priests returned from exiles and camps, arrested with him, admitted guilt, and they rejected all the charges. Some of the arrested, in spite of all the investigators' efforts to persuade them to false testimony, held themselves manfully, accused neither themselves nor others and received the death of martyrdom. On 21 December 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced them to death. Archbishop Alexander (Trapitsyn) and the priests John Suldin, John Smirnov, Alexander Organov and Alexander Ivanov were shot on 14 January 1938. Because of the large number of executions, the other priests came into the next group: Vyacheslav Infantov, Basil Vitevsky and Jacob Alferov were shot on 8 February 1938. All the holy hieromartyrs who were shot were buried in an unknown common grave.

The Church commemorates him on 14 January, the day of his death, in the new style, on 12 August in the Synaxis of the Saints of Samara, and on the movable day of the synaxis of the new martyrs.