John Sretensky

Holy Venerable Martyr John Sretensky, a novice, was one of the ten venerable martyrs of the Zilantov Dormition Monastery in Kazan, killed in 1918. In 1917 in the Zilantov monastery, on the edge of Kazan, there lived nine monks and novices under the care of Archimandrite Sergius (Zaitsev). When in 1918 Kazan was freed by the White-⁠Czech troops of Colonel Kappel, two guns were set on the hill in front of the monastery gate, which fired on the Bolshevik positions.

On 28 August (10 September in the new style) the Czechs retreated, and the Bolsheviks entered the suburb where the monastery stood. The Red soldiers lined up the whole brotherhood by the wall of the courtyard and shot them in rifle volleys, then left the monastery and went on to the city. The only one left alive was the aged hieromonk Joseph, who at the first volleys fell to the ground and was thought dead. Getting out from under the bodies of his brothers, he went into the city and found shelter at the monastery of Saint John the Forerunner. Deaf, and dead a year later, he told of the martyr's end of the brothers. Shot were Archimandrite Sergius (Zaitsev), the hieromonks Laurence (Nikitin) and Seraphim (Kuzmin), the hierodeacon Theodosius (Alexandrov), the monks Leontius (Karyagin) and Stephen, the novices George (Timofeev), Sergius (Galin), Hilarion (Pravdin) and John Sretensky. The funeral service of the martyrs was performed by Archimandrite, later bishop and hieromartyr, Joasaph (Udalov).

They were canonized as locally honoured saints by the Kazan diocese in 1998. The Council of Bishops of the Russian Church in August 2000 numbered them among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, for veneration throughout the Church. The page gives no further details about John in particular, nor his birth date.

The Church commemorates him on 10 September, the day of his death, in the new style (28 August in the old style), on 17 October in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kazan, and on the movable day of the synaxis of the new martyrs.