John Zolotov

Holy Martyr John Zolotov, a layman, was born in 1897 in the village of Kupriyanovo in the Dmitrov district of the Moscow province, in the family of the peasant Paul Zolotov. At some point he lived in Moscow, married and had a son. A deeply churchly man, Ivan Pavlovich took into his house in 1932 the schemanun Alexandra (Chervyakova), whom he had known since 1924, registered her as a dependent of his, and she lived with him as long as it suited her. With him also lived for fifteen years the schemanun Euphrosyne (Goryushkina).

He was arrested with the schemanun Alexandra on 26 August 1937 and imprisoned at Butyrka. On 7 September he was called to interrogation; at first he refused to answer any question and to sign the protocols, but then began to answer. The investigator asked how often he visited Chervyakova; he said once or twice in three months, and when the investigator said that he knew it was once or twice in five days, he denied it. The purpose of the visits was to help her, with twenty to twenty-⁠five rubles a month, and the last time he took fifteen rubles. Asked why he helped a woman who was no relative, though he himself was in want, he answered that he had some fifty hens, sold the eggs for a hundred and five rubles a month, and helped her from this, out of pity for her as one helpless. He admitted that Euphrosyne Goryushkina had lived with him for fifteen years, but denied that he had glorified Chervyakova as a blessed one and a seer.

He was accused of having been a member of a counterrevolutionary church-⁠monarchist group and of having given great material help to exiled monastics and clergy. On 8 October 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced him to death. John Pavlovich Zolotov was shot on 9 October 1937 at the Butovo firing range near Moscow and buried in an unknown common grave. The Church commemorates him on 9 October, the day of his death, in the new style, and on the movable days of the synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo (29 May) and of the Saints of Moscow (5 September).