Matthias Ryabtsev

Holy Hieromartyr Matthias Ryabtsev, a priest, with the full name Matthias Mikhailovich Ryabtsev, was born in 1871 in the Ryazan province. After finishing the Theological Seminary at Ryazan in 1891, he was appointed teacher and choirmaster at the two-⁠class parish school in the village of Polyanki, Pronsk district. In 1893 he was appointed psalmist at the church in the village of Tuma Nikolaevskaya, Kasimov district, and teacher and catechist at the church school there, but in 1894, at his own wish, he remained only a teacher.

On 22 May 1895 he was ordained a priest for the church in the village of Gorlovo, Skopin district, but since there was no free place there, on 27 May he was appointed to the church in the village of Maksheevo, Yegoryevsk district, and head and teacher of the local school. In 1903 and 1905 he was elected a deputy to the school and diocesan congresses. In 1905 he carried the obedience of missionary against schism in the first deanery of Yegoryevsk. On 2 September 1905 he was appointed to the cathedral of Kasimov. From 1906 to 1910 he was head of the one-⁠class church school of Kasimov and its teacher, and from 1906 he was also catechist and teacher of Latin at the town's boys' gymnasium. When the First World War began and wounded soldiers were placed in the town infirmary, Father Matthias began to serve there too and to care spiritually for the wounded.

In November 1918, after the godless came to power, an order was given to arrest the priest. The soldiers who came to arrest him offered him to hide, and they would report to their superiors that they had not found him at home. The priest did not accept, but resolved to go with them to death. He was shot beside the wall of the town cemetery. The soldiers refused to fire, and then the very commander of the detachment, the Bolshevik commissar Kokorev, shot him. After a short time Kokorev fell mortally ill and was taken to hospital. The illness was so tormenting that he howled with pain and, understanding probably that it had been sent for grave sins, cried: "Father Matthias, forgive me."

He is commemorated on the movable day around 7 February, in the new style, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, on 23 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of Ryazan and on the movable day around 5 September in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.