Maria Mamontova-⁠Shashina

Holy Venerable Martyr Maria Mamontova-⁠Shashina, a novice (1890-1938), was born in a peasant family in the village of Dedinovo, Ryazan province. In 1914 she entered as a novice the Kolychevo women's monastery of the Kazan Icon. After the monastery was closed, in 1920, she returned to her native village, where she sewed quilts, sang in the choir and read the Psalter over the dead.

The first arrest

In 1930 the authorities wanted to close the village church, because the community could not pay a large tax. The sisters collected the money from peasants in neighbouring villages and went to Moscow to ask that the church remain open. On 1 June 1931 Maria was arrested; she told the investigator only that her monastery was reckoned rich, having land and forest, and had the wonderworking Kazan icon. She was accused, with a nun, of having collected money for the church's servants and agitated against the closure. The OGPU troika sentenced her to three years of camp, in Kazakhstan, at Akmolinsk (until 1934).

The second arrest and death

Back home, she was elected to the church council. In 1936 the church was turned into a warehouse. Witnesses said that Maria told the peasants that their last consolation had been taken, that she criticized the Stalin constitution and that she told the women not to fall away from the church even on feast days. On 24 September 1937 she was arrested again. She denied everything charged against her, admitting only that in 1936 she had shown some collective-⁠farm women a panorama of churches and monasteries; she rejected the testimony of the seven witnesses. On 13 October 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced her to eight years of camp. She was taken to Butyrka, then to Bamlag, where she died on 2 October 1938 and was buried in an unknown grave.

She is commemorated on 2 October, the day of her death, in the new style, on the movable day around 7 February in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and on the movable day around 5 September in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.