Joseph (Petrovykh)

Joseph (Petrovykh) was metropolitan of Petrograd, exiled by the Soviet authorities and shot for the faith in 1937 near Chimkent. He was canonized in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia; the Russian Orthodox Church of Moscow has not canonized him.

He was born on 27 December 1872 (15 December, old style) at Ustyuzhna in Novgorod province, into the family of a townsman who owned a bakery. He finished the Novgorod seminary and the Moscow Theological Academy, with a work on Josephus Flavius; he was tonsured a monk on 26 August 1901 and ordained a priest on 14 October 1901. He was bishop of Uglich from 1909, archbishop of Rostov from 1920, and in 1926 became metropolitan of Petrograd (Leningrad).

After the declaration of 1927 of Metropolitan Sergius, in which the Church declared full loyalty to the Soviet power, he refused the transfer to Odessa and became the leader of the movement known as the Josephites. He was exiled, ending up in the Chimkent region of Kazakhstan. He was arrested again on 7 July 1937, condemned to death by the NKVD troika of the South Kazakhstan region on 19 November and shot at midnight on 20 November 1937, together with Metropolitan Cyril (Smirnov), at Lisya Balka (Fox Ravine), where he is believed to be buried. The Church in Moscow has not canonized him, among other reasons because of a confession of guilt signed during the last investigation, which some believe to have been forged.