Michael Kargopolov

Saint Michael Kargopolov, hieromartyr, was a priest of the Russian Church and was killed on 31 January 1919 in the Yenisei region. He was numbered among the saints as a hieromartyr in the year 2000, for veneration throughout the Church. He is commemorated on 18 January (31 January on the new style) and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

Before receiving the priesthood he was an officer in the Cossack troops. He served as priest in the village of Petrovskoe, Achinsk district, Yenisei governorate (now the Birilyussy district of Krasnoyarsk Krai). On 31 January 1919 he was arrested by a detachment of Red soldiers under the command of Shchetinkin. The priest was placed on the last sleigh, while those who arrested him sat on the first. After going a little more than a kilometre from the village, they stopped the horses, dragged the priest out of the sleigh, tore off his fur coat and demanded that he take off his cross. Father Michael refused. Then they tried to tear the cross from his hands by force, but without success. Clasping the cross in his hands, the priest prayed and said: For they know not what they do. One of the executioners fired point-⁠blank at his head. Father Michael fell, and they began to shoot at him, about twenty rounds, until they killed him.

On 17 March of the same year, in the Annunciation church in the city of Krasnoyarsk, the diocesan bishop, with many clergy, served a solemn funeral for the priest. The body of the martyr pastor was buried beside the Annunciation church. He was numbered among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia by decision of the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, held on 13 to 16 August 2000 in Moscow.