Leonid Viktorov

Holy Hieromartyr Leonid Viktorov, a priest, was born in 1891 in Ryazan, in a deacon's family. His full name was Leonid Viktorov. He was orphaned early and was taken free into the Ryazan theological seminary. After graduating he served as psalm-⁠reader in the church of the village of Boloshnevo, whose builder and first rector had been his grandfather, the archpriest John Viktorov. In 1912 he was ordained deacon and then priest for the Nativity of the Mother of God church in the village of Kurbatovo. He became the rector of this church and head of the church school.

In the thirties the church in Kurbatovo was closed. The priest's family, with five small children, was driven out of its home. Father Leonid looked for another place of service. First he served in the village of Pavlishchevo, but there too the church was soon closed. At that time Father Leonid's uncle, the priest of Boloshnevo, Michael Viktorov, was arrested, and Father Leonid served in his place. Here Father Leonid was deprived of the right to vote, and his children were not admitted to schools.

At the beginning of 1936 Archbishop Juvenal of Ryazan was arrested. The danger of arrest hung directly over Father Leonid. At night, when arrests were usually made, he went to sleep in neighbouring villages, and the children were hidden in the bell tower. In Boloshnevo it was announced: "Whoever shelters the priest or a member of his family will be arrested and exiled". In the night of 20 February 1936 Father Leonid was found in a neighbouring village and arrested, brought to the watchman's house of the church and forced to hand over the church treasury. Finding neither money nor valuables, the Chekists took Father Leonid to prison. At the arrest they also took his personal diary and correspondence. Father Leonid's last words, before he was taken away, were to his eldest daughter Anna: "Do not leave the children and mother, I will certainly return. May the Lord keep you".

In the group case of the "Ryazan clergy and laity" Father Leonid was sentenced to five years in the camps. Two years the priest spent in Siblag, at Mariinsk, where he died at the beginning of 1938.

He is commemorated on 10 January, on 7 February, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, on 23 June, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Ryazan, and on 29 August, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Kuzbass (the date moves), in the new style.