Leonid Muravyov

Holy Hieromartyr Leonid Muravyov, a priest, was born on 18 April 1868 in the village of Aleshino, Bronnitsy district, Moscow province, in the family of the priest Vladimir Ivanovich Muravyov, who served forty-⁠three years at the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in Aleshino. In 1888 Leonid Vladimirovich graduated from the Moscow theological seminary in the second category and became a teacher at the church school in Faustovo; during his teaching he married Maria Alexandrovna. On 4 February 1896 Metropolitan Sergius (Lyapidevsky) ordained him priest and appointed him rector of the Exaltation of the Cross church in the village of Marinka. There he served forty-⁠two years, until his arrest, in a parish blessed by the Abbot of the Russian land. Besides serving in church, he taught religion to the children at the Marinka church school. The parish was poor, but by the priest's diligence and skill his household was fairly decent for a village priest: a house roofed with iron, a shed, barn, bathhouse, two horses, two cows, eight sheep and pigs. They had four children: Leonid (1895), Maria (1897), Ekaterina (1902) and Alexander (1911).

After 1917 persecution fell on the Church and grew especially with collectivisation. In the thirties the authorities set themselves the aim of strangling the Church by taxes and state deliveries, and the Marinka parish and the priest, declared a kulak, were heavily burdened: in 1937 he paid 1065 rubles in taxes and 922 rubles of cult levy, similar sums in the earlier years. In 1931 Father Leonid was accused of causing damage to collective-⁠farm property: piglets had died which the collective farmers kept in the priest's yard. The charge could not be proved, since the testimonies showed the farmers and the veterinarian to blame. In the same year the family was given a "firm assignment" of deliveries, which it could not fulfil, and he was tried; the sentence ordered his property confiscated, leaving the priest a bathhouse to live in. Father Leonid complained to the Central Executive Committee, which cancelled the sentence, and the property was returned to him.

In 1938 he came again to the attention of the NKVD, from a denunciation: "I inform you that baptisms are being performed in the house in the presence of schoolchildren. He goes round to houses where he baptizes both Marinka people and those come from distant villages. I consider that the priest is spreading his cult of baptism". On 16 March witness statements were gathered, among them the chairman of the soviet and the head of the reading-⁠room. The chairman wrote that the priest "carries on anti-⁠Soviet talk among the people of Marinka. He goes round to houses, baptizes newborns in dirty barrels. He has a maid whom he exploits. On religious feasts, when he serves in church, work at the collective farm is always disrupted through his fault". On 31 March Father Leonid was arrested, his home searched without result, and he was put in prison in Kashira.

The investigator asked him whether in 1931, during collectivisation, he had said that those who joined the collective farm would be hanged. He answered that he had made no anti-⁠Soviet talk, except that he had told the collective farmers that work in the collective farm was very hard and that life was better in individual farming. Asked about the saying that all authority is from God, he admitted that he had spoken about authority, but only according to Holy Scripture. He did not consider himself guilty of anti-⁠Soviet agitation. Father Leonid did not fall into the wave of mass repressions and spent three and a half months in prison awaiting sentence. On 16 July 1938 the NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years of imprisonment. The doctor who examined him listed his illnesses, adding nevertheless that the priest was healthy. He was sent to the Mariinsk camps in the Kemerovo region, but did not stay long. The priest Leonid Muravyov died in confinement on 11 November 1941 and was buried in an unknown grave.

He is commemorated on 11 November, the day of his death, on 7 February, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, on 29 August, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Kuzbass, and on 5 September, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, in the new style.