Michael Yakunkin

Holy Martyr Michael Yakunkin (Mikhail Ivanovich Yakunkin) was born on 7 November 1878 in the village of Petrushevo in the Kasimov district of Ryazan province. The village had no church, and its inhabitants belonged to the Pogost parish. In childhood he attended a three-⁠class village school. He came of a line of sturdy peasant farmers, who in every age of Russia built their earthly welfare on hope in God and diligent labour on the land, and in the Yakunkin family, from time out of mind, there had always been blacksmiths. Mikhail Ivanovich had talent and health, and was counted in the district one of the best smiths. His sons Gavriil and Pavel followed in his steps, one as a hammerman and the other as a smith, in different places of the Kasimov district.

The farm of Mikhail Ivanovich and his wife Marfa was, by the measure of a Russian peasant, not rich: a house with outbuildings, a horse, two cows and a sow. Both sons were married, and two daughters-⁠in-⁠law, Alexandra and Irina, lived in the house. But even such a farm was declared kulak and confiscated. After dekulakization, Mikhail, his wife and the daughters-⁠in-⁠law had to go to work in the collective farm. The peasantry was burdened with unbearable state taxes, and non-⁠payment brought a criminal case; so in 1932 Mikhail Ivanovich was first tried "as a malicious evader of state payments" and spent six months in prison.

In spite of everything he remained faithful to God and the Church. In 1930-1934 he was a member of the parish council of the Pogost church. The second arrest came on 21 September 1937. He was accused of taking part in the counter-⁠revolutionary kulak uprising of 1918, though he had said earlier that at the time of the uprising he was at home. By decision of the NKVD "troika" of the Ryazan region of 6 December 1937, under article 58, points 10-11, he was sentenced to death. The page does not give the date of the execution.

He is commemorated on 23 December, in the new style, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church (a movable day) and, on 23 June, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Ryazan.