Michael Krasnotsvetov

Holy Hieromartyr Michael Krasnotsvetov was a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, put to death at Tyumen in 1937. He was entered in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church in December 2021 and glorified in April 2022. He is commemorated on 12 October (29 September old style), the day of his death; the Russian source says in one place by the Julian calendar, then writes 12 October (29 September), and the latter is the form that fits.

Youth and calling

He was born in 1885 at Kaluga, into the family of the deacon Grigory Krasnotsvetov. After the first class of the seminary he asked of his own will to be withdrawn and entered a private classical gymnasium in Moscow, then the law faculty of the Imperial University of Moscow. In 1907 he married; they had six children. In 1909 he entered service in the Vladimir governorate, first as a folk-⁠school teacher, then as a zemstvo insurance agent. Under the Provisional Government he was elected justice of the peace and bore this duty until 1920. During the civil war the family moved to Siberia.

At the end of 1921 he decided to serve the Church. On 4 November 1921 Bishop Nicholas (Pokrovsky) of Tobolsk and Siberia ordained him deacon, and on 6 November presbyter. Although he joined the Renovationist movement for a time, after a few months, realising that it was schismatic, he broke with it. There are reports that in 1927 the authorities tried to recruit him as an informer, but he refused.

Persecution and martyrdom

On 19 March 1927 he was arrested, accused of agitation in support of the international bourgeoisie; he spent a month in prison and was released on condition of not leaving the place. In 1929 the church of the Protection of the Mother of God in the village of Aromashevo, Ishim district, where he served, was closed, and Father Michael was dekulakized, with confiscation of his house and property.

On 21 March 1931 he was arrested a second time, for counter-⁠revolutionary agitation. He did not admit guilt and stated in his depositions that, as a priest, he had preached only the moral principles of Christianity, without going beyond the Gospel teaching. He was sentenced to five years in the Vishera labour camp. He was released in April 1935 and until 29 March 1936 served his term in exile. He then lived with his family in Tyumen, where he served as psalm-⁠reader at the All Saints cemetery church.

On 5 July 1937 he was arrested for anti-⁠Soviet propaganda. During the investigation he was questioned twice and did not admit guilt. His signature on the record of the second interrogation, of 19 July, differs strikingly from that on the first, of 6 July, which suggests that the investigators used physical means to obtain confessions. In letters to his family Father Michael wrote that he would never abandon his ministry and that the step he had taken was his true choice.

On 10 October 1937 he was sentenced to death by shooting on the basis of the testimony of witnesses and accused. The sentence was carried out on 12 October 1937. He was rehabilitated posthumously in 1957.

Veneration

On 29 December 2021 the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church decided to include the name of the priest Michael Krasnotsvetov in the list of the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church. The glorification took place on 7 April 2022, at the Divine Liturgy, in the cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow.