John Tikhomirov

Holy Hieromartyr John Tikhomirov, archpriest, was born on 13 August 1876 at Vladimir and was shot at the Butovo firing range, near Moscow, on 17 February 1938. He was numbered among the new martyrs of Russia by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on 30 July 2003, for veneration throughout the Church. He is remembered on 4 February, in the synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia and in the synaxis of the new martyrs of Butovo.

Service

He was born in the town of Vladimir, into the family of a minor official, Pyotr Fyodorovich Tikhomirov. In 1897 he finished the theological seminary at Vladimir and soon was ordained. In 1926 he was raised to archpriest. Until 1930 he served at the cathedral of the Intercession of the Mother of God in the town of Melenki, which then belonged to the Ivanovo region. In April 1930 he was moved to the church of the Jerusalem icon of the Mother of God in the village of Vospushka, in the Petushki district of the Moscow region. On 17 December 1932 he was appointed again to the Intercession cathedral in Melenki and in the same year received the palitsa. From 17 April 1933 he served in the village of Vlasovskoe, Korobov district, from March 1936 in the village of Noviselebnoe, and on 1 June 1936 he was assigned to the church of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God in the village of Petrovskoe, Shatura district. The rector of this church for forty years had been Archpriest Alexander Sakharov, arrested in the night of 15 to 16 November 1937 and shot on 3 December at Butovo.

Arrest and martyrdom

The authorities were preparing to arrest Father John Tikhomirov as well. In January 1938 the investigator Sirotkin, of the NKVD of the Shatura district, questioned several false witnesses, who declared that the priest Tikhomirov was an enemy of the Soviet order, had gathered around him anti-⁠Soviet and churchly elements, had spread among collective farmers in November 1937 counter-⁠revolutionary slanders about the arrest of the priest Sakharov and had said that the Bolsheviks torment priests, and that on election day there would be a vote also on closing the church, so that one should not go to them. They added that in 1937 he had sheltered wandering priests at his home.

In 1957 one of the witnesses, who at that time had been head of the housing administration of the town council, was questioned again and told how things had gone: on the instructions of the town party committee the Petrovskoe activists had decided to close the church, which was hard to do while it had a priest. The priest Sakharov was removed, and after a time, at the request of the citizens, a second priest, Tikhomirov, was sent. He and his friend Kirsanov went to consult the investigator Sirotkin on how to get rid of him. He told them that he would arrange everything, they only had to come and sign. The next day they went and signed the records, without reading what was written in them, since the church had to be closed at any cost. After they had signed, the priest was arrested.

On 26 January 1938 Father John Tikhomirov was arrested and imprisoned in the prison of the Yegoryevsk district. The next day he was questioned and said twice that he had carried on no counter-⁠revolutionary activity and did not consider himself guilty. The inquiry ended there. On 11 February 1938 the troika of the NKVD for the Moscow region sentenced him to be shot, for "counter-⁠revolutionary agitation against the elections to the Supreme Soviet". On 17 February 1938 he was shot at the Butovo firing range, near Moscow, and buried in an unknown common grave.