Jonah Sankov

Holy Venerable Martyr Jonah Sankov was a hieromonk on Mount Athos and later a village priest in Russia, shot in 1938 at the Butovo firing range near Moscow. He is one of the new martyrs of the twentieth century.

Youth and Athos

He was born on 20 July 1873 in the village of Solchino, in the Zaraisk district of Ryazan province, into a devout merchant family, and at baptism he was given the name John. His father, Andrew Nikitich Sankov, traded in grain in Moscow. When John was eleven his mother fell gravely ill and went to her native village, taking him with her. He finished two grades of school there, and after his mother's death he returned to Moscow, completed his schooling and worked with his father.

His heart, however, was not set on gain or on family life. In the family it was an old custom that one of the children should give his life to God and pray for all his kin, and John wished to go to Athos. His father gladly gave his blessing. In 1893, at twenty, he entered the Russian monastery of Saint Panteleimon on Athos as a novice, and was later tonsured with the name Jonah and ordained hieromonk.

Priest in Russia

On 1 March 1914 he was sent to the monastery's dependency in Constantinople, but in July, when war broke out between Turkey and Russia, all Russian subjects were expelled from the city. Back in Russia he served at the Panteleimon dependency in Odessa, and after the godless authorities closed it in 1923, at the Annunciation church. When that church too was closed in 1927, he served at the church of All Saints in the cemetery, which was also soon closed.

In 1930 he received a letter from acquaintances in the village of Alpatyevo, near Solchino, where the priest had died. He went there and served in the Kazan church of the village until his arrest.

Arrest and martyrdom

At the end of 1937 the closing of the church in Alpatyevo and the handing over of the building for a school came into question. The believers prevented the closing, and the witnesses called by the investigators accused the priest of urging them to defend the church and of speaking against the authorities. Some of the testimony was false or groundless: he was blamed, for example, for saying that he received only a single bottle of kerosene a year.

On 24 February 1938 Father Jonah was arrested and imprisoned in Kolomna. He refused to sign the arrest warrant. Asked about a note found among his papers about the coming of the Antichrist, he answered that he had copied it from the Bible and did not himself understand the meaning of the words. Charged with counter-⁠revolutionary agitation, he said he did not consider himself guilty and confessed to nothing.

On 7 June 1938 the NKVD troika sentenced him to death. He was transferred to the Taganka prison in Moscow, where he was photographed on 13 June. He was shot on 4 July 1938 and buried in an unmarked common grave at the Butovo firing range near Moscow.

Veneration

He is commemorated on 4 July, the day of his martyrdom, on 29 May in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo (a movable day), on 20 May in the Synaxis of the Russian Fathers of the monastery of Saint Panteleimon on Athos, and on 5 September (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.