Michael Belyustin

Holy Hieromartyr Michael Belyustin, a priest, was born on 1 March 1881 in the city of Tver, to Nikolai Belyustin, an official of the Tver consistory. He graduated from the Tver theological seminary and served in the village of Kotovo in the Molokovo district. In 1931 he moved to the Sonkovo district and served at the church of the Saburovo graveyard.

When the authorities announced the start of the persecution, the OGPU began to gather information on clergy. The OGPU agent for the Sonkovo district summoned those who might give evidence about Father Michael, but this was not easy: few agreed to say anything defamatory about the priest. On 6 April 1933 a collective-⁠farm foreman was questioned, and on the same day Father Michael was arrested and held at Bezhetsk. Questioned on 9 April, he said that he had spoken with no one about politics; on 26 April the OGPU troika sentenced him to three years in a labour camp. He was sent to the Sarov camps.

In 1935 he was freed and, with the blessing of Archbishop Thaddeus of Tver, went to Sonkovo, where the church of the Priluki graveyard was without a priest. In November 1936, though the campaign to close churches had already begun, he managed to re-⁠register the Orthodox community of Priluki and the neighbouring villages Gladyshevo, Sinyaevo, Pribericha, Grigorievka, Snosy, Moiseicha and Sely.

The new persecution of 1937 spared no one except those who served the godless openly and the Renovationist traitors. On 12 November Father Michael was arrested and held at Bezhetsk. Standing witnesses were summoned, who signed everything the investigator demanded. On 20 November, questioned, he denied the charges of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation to wreck the collective farms, of spreading rumours of war and the fall of Soviet power, and of praising Trotsky and Bukharin. On 25 November the NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and on 27 November 1937 he was shot.

He is commemorated on 27 November, the day of his death, in the new style, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church (a movable day) and, on 18 July, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Tver (a movable day).