Nadezhda Abakumova

Holy Martyr Nadezhda Abakumova (Nadezhda Petrovna Abakumova) was born in 1880 in the village of Vanilovo, Bronnitsy district of Moscow province, to a peasant family. In 1899 she married the peasant Vasily Sergeevich Abakumov of the village of Martynovskoe, in the same district, and moved to him; they had four children. During the civil war Vasily Sergeevich was called to the front and died, and Nadezhda Petrovna had to bring up the children alone. Being a deeply believing person, in 1925 she was elected to the church council, and from 1928 became churchwarden of the church of the Nativity of Christ in the village of Martynovskoe, which in those days meant taking upon herself the duty of keeping all dealings with the authorities hostile to the Church.

Until 1932 she still had a small farm, with a cow and a horse, but in that year the authorities took everything from her for non-⁠payment of taxes; in 1933 the court sentenced her to a fine for non-⁠payment of taxes, and in 1934 sentenced her again to a fine. In 1936 the priest who served at Martynovskoe, Peter Kedrov, was arrested, and Nadezhda Petrovna invited to serve there the priest of the neighbouring parish, Archpriest Peter Lyubimov, who from that time shepherded two parishes, and she helped him defend the church against closure. She was arrested with the priest on 2 March 1938 and held in Kashira.

The investigator asked in what her connection with the priest Lyubimov consisted. She answered that the connection was through the service in church. She said that on visits to her home the priest said that the church must be supported through the faithful, that perhaps in a year or two something would change for the better, and that of a change of authorities he had said nothing. Accused that, as churchwarden, she gathered individual farmers and carried on anti-⁠Soviet agitation among them, so that they should not join the collective farm and not pay taxes, she answered that yes, she had gathered them and talked with them about the building of collective farms and non-⁠payment of taxes, since the village council had taken her own cow for non-⁠payment of taxes. She did not admit guilt of anti-⁠Soviet agitation, but said only that she had spoken against the collective-⁠farm system, that it is a bad thing. Asked whether she had said that Soviet power robs the people, she answered that she had not said such a thing, but only that she would not pay the tax.

On 9 March 1938 the NKVD troika sentenced her to death. The churchwarden Nadezhda Petrovna Abakumova was shot on 14 March 1938 and buried in the unknown common grave at the Butovo range near Moscow. She is commemorated on 14 March, the day of her death, in the new style, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo (a movable day) and with the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, on 5 September (a movable day).