John Smirnov

Holy Hieromartyr John Smirnov, a deacon and then a priest, in the world Ivan Yakovlevich Smirnov, was born on 12 November 1872 in the village of Pakhomovo in the Plescheevo volost of the Tver province, in the family of a bread merchant. Little is known of his life before the revolution, only that between 1895 and 1899 he served in the tsarist army.

In 1922 Bishop Athanasius (Sakharov) ordained him deacon and he began to serve at the Danilov Monastery. In 1927 he was arrested and accused of "anti-⁠Soviet propaganda, of propaganda among church people for the election as patriarch of Metropolitan Cyril, an anti-⁠Soviet figure". A sentence followed of three years of exile in Siberia. In 1930, after the term ended, he received a ban on living in large cities, settled at Vladimir and served at the church of Saint Nicholas at Galeya.

On 3 November 1931 he was arrested again, accused of taking part in a counterrevolutionary group of church people close to Bishop Athanasius, in anti-⁠Soviet gatherings, and of helping prisoners and exiles. Probably the proofs were too few, for after four months of investigation he was released. About this time he was ordained priest and continued to serve at the same church in Vladimir. The third arrest came on 26 April 1936, in the same case as Bishop Athanasius who had ordained him, and he was sentenced to exile in Kazakhstan. In the village of Mariyevka in the Tonkerei district, North Kazakhstan region, he worked at a butter factory.

On 24 November 1937 he was arrested in exile, accused of keeping contact with the exiled bishops and carrying on counterrevolutionary agitation. At the interrogation he answered that he had carried on no agitation and lived on money sent by relatives. The troika of the NKVD Directorate for the North Kazakhstan region sentenced him to death. Father John was shot on 4 December 1937, and the place of burial is not known.

The Church commemorates him on 5 December, in the new style, and on the movable day of the synaxis of the new martyrs.