John Yanushev

Holy Hieromartyr John (Ivan Vasilievich Yanushev) was an archpriest of the Russian Church, born on 24 April (6 May) 1877 in Moscow, into a deacon's family, and shot on 8 December 1937 at the Butovo firing range near Moscow. He was numbered among the New Martyrs of Russia, for veneration throughout the Church, on 17 July 2002, by decision of the Holy Synod.

In 1897 he graduated from the Moscow seminary, then entered the Kazan Theological Academy, which he finished in 1902. A year later he entered as psalm-⁠reader at the Archangel cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. On 18 May 1908 he began to serve as priest at the Saviour cathedral in Moscow. On 22 September 1917 he moved to the Annunciation cathedral of the Kremlin, and on 20 May 1918 was appointed sakellarios of this cathedral. After Soviet power closed all the cathedrals and monasteries of the Kremlin, Yanushev was rector of the church of Saint Spyridon of Trimythous, where he served until its closing and destruction. In 1920 he was raised to the rank of archpriest. On 1 August 1930 he was appointed to the church of the Nativity of Christ. In 1935 he was appointed to the church of the Dormition in the settlement of Veshnyaki (today within Moscow). He received the palitsa in 1924 and the pectoral cross with ornaments in 1927.

On 19 November 1937 he was arrested by the NKVD and imprisoned in the Taganka prison in Moscow. False witnesses told the investigators of the archpriest's "anti-⁠Soviet activity". One false witness stated that the priest had said to her in conversation that the Constitution is written in beautiful phrases, that the Communists are capable only of writing beautiful declarations and shouting at every corner about general elections, democracy and the recognition of free religion, while closing churches, acting at every step against believers, not allowing them to hold services and not allowing parents to baptize infants; that this is not life but persecution of the Orthodox; that the Constitution is written in pompous phrases in order to win trust among the people, which the Communists do not have, but that all the same the Communists, persecutors of the Orthodox, with their constitution, will soon come to an end. On 1 December 1937 Father John was sentenced to death by the NKVD troika for the Moscow region, for "counter-⁠revolutionary agitation and the expression of terrorist moods toward the leaders of the party and of the Soviet government". On 8 December 1937 he was shot at the Butovo range and buried in an unknown common grave.