Michael Smirnov

Holy Hieromartyr Michael Smirnov, a deacon, was born in 1880 at Astrakhan, to a priest's family. On 27 April 1906, on finishing the Astrakhan theological seminary, he was appointed reader at the cathedral of Krasny Yar, and in 1922 he was ordained a deacon. At Krasny Yar, in 1907, he made the acquaintance of the priest Nicholas Zalessky and a close friendship grew between them. When he came to Krasny Yar, Father Nicholas Zalessky always dropped in on Deacon Michael for tea. Father Nicholas Tarbeev, the parish priest at Krasny Yar, found in Deacon Michael a faithful and courageous helper.

The Renovationists did not give up. Having lost the initiative, they resorted to denunciations and slander against the clergy of the churches of Krasny Yar. The clergy were credited with words they were said to have spoken, that the Renovationists were agents of the GPU. To Deacon Michael Smirnov was ascribed the saying that the time would come when the Renovationists would be hanged together with the Communists. On the strength of such denunciations the security police began to work up a vast "church conspiracy" at Krasny Yar, which they soon tied to a "conspiracy of a kulak-⁠monarchist grouping". There came to the investigators' attention the priests Nicholas Tarbeev and Nicholas Zalessky, Deacon Michael Smirnov, the church warden Abram Popov and four former novices of convents, called at Krasny Yar "nuns": Vera Popova, Alexandra Aristova, Tatiana Brozhenina and Varvara Matveenko.

On 11 November 1930 Father Nicholas Zalessky, Father Michael Smirnov, the warden Abram Popov and the former novices were arrested. In the course of the inquiry Deacon Michael Smirnov was suddenly put in the place of Father Nicholas Zalessky as successor of Father Nicholas Tarbeev in leading the "church conspiracy". Now it was written that Father Nicholas Zalessky went to Father Michael Smirnov at Krasny Yar for instructions and that Deacon Smirnov "talked in church with the nuns to persuade the faithful to demand of the authorities the release of Tarbeev". Deacon Michael Smirnov admitted guilt of nothing. To all charges he replied thus: "I visited the priest Tarbeev, but very seldom, on church business, and twice with my wife on a family visit." Father Michael stood firm in the inquiry too.

On 17 December 1930, by decision of the OGPU troika of the Lower Volga region, they, together with four other accused, were sentenced to death. But even after the sentence they were long kept in prison. One of those held in the same cell later told: "Father Nicholas held himself firm in prison. The guards tried to take his priest's cross off him, but he would not allow it, saying, 'You did not hang the cross, and you will not take it off.' They kept us until Christmas. On the night of Christmas, when all the Orthodox world rejoices, Father Nicholas resolved to serve the festal matins. The other clergy supported him. They sang loudly, not hiding, though the guards shouted at them, demanded that they stop, and knocked ceaselessly on the door. But they served to the end. All the prisoners in the cell prayed together with the clergy. The next morning Father Nicholas Zalessky and the other clergy were called out with their things. They went and did not return. It later became clear that they were shot." Their shooting is dated 8 January, at 11.15, "outside the city, in a place guaranteeing complete secrecy". So, with the words of the Christmas hymns on their lips, the martyrs of Krasny Yar met their end, conquering fear by prayer and death by faith.

The page does not give the year of the shooting; by the order of events (the sentence of 17 December 1930) it was 8 January 1931. Michael Smirnov is commemorated on 8 January, 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 24 May, with the Synaxis of the Saints of the Astrakhan Metropolis.