Nazarius Gribkov

Holy Hieromartyr Nazarius Gribkov, a priest (archpriest), was born on 22 October 1879 in the village of Ogryzkovo, Yegoryevsk district of Ryazan province, to the peasant Stepan Gribkov. He received his first education at the Khludov school in Yegoryevsk, where he began to sing in the boys' choir, and there his gifts as a singer were discovered. Through singing he came to love the church service itself, and in the end wished to be a servant of the church. He completed the fifth and sixth classes of the Ryazan theological seminary and from 1899 served as reader, from 1906 at the cathedral of Yegoryevsk. In 1916 he married Claudia, daughter of Alexei Eliseev, a man well known in the district, a member of the assembly of the nobility. The four Eliseev sisters and their brother lived in the village of Shelogurovo, and of all the sisters Claudia was marked by kindness. In 1916 Bishop Ambrose (Smirnov) of Mikhailov, vicar of Ryazan, ordained him a deacon, and in 1919 Archbishop John (Smirnov) of Ryazan ordained him a priest, for the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the village of Berezovka. In 1926 he received the pectoral cross, and in 1928 the rank of archpriest.

The priest and Claudia had no children for almost ten years. The doctors assured her that even if she became pregnant she could not give birth, because of a serious heart disease. In 1926 she became pregnant. The doctors warned her that if she gave birth she herself might die. Claudia showed complete humility before the trial awaiting her. But she asked her husband, "If a boy is born and lives, name him Nicholas." She greatly honoured and loved Saint Nicholas the hierarch. Claudia died in childbirth, but the son was born healthy and, according to his mother's wish, was named Nicholas. At first the priest himself fed the baby from a bottle, then a woman of the village named Pelagia nursed him, who nursed her own child and fed the orphan too. Father Nazarius used to tell his son that one of the greatest Christian virtues is gratitude, and urged him to pray for his benefactors, among them his wet-⁠nurse.

At that time Father Nazarius served in the village of Pochinki, Yegoryevsk district. The death of his wife was a great blow to him, and he asked the bishop to move him to a church in another village. In 1929 Archbishop Pitirim (Krylov) of Orekhovo-⁠Zuevo, vicar of Moscow, appointed him to the church of the Holy Great Martyr Paraskeva in the village of Tugoles. Moving to Tugoles, he and his son settled in the house of Daria Dmitrievna Gorelova and Paraskeva Alexandrovna Stepanova. They were not relatives but sisters in Christ, lived in harmony, loving each other and caring for each other. Daria was born without a leg from the knee down; Paraskeva made friends with her, then began to care for and help her, and they came to live in the same house. They earned by quilting blankets and sewing children's clothes. In the village there lived and helped in the church two novices from a convent, the sisters Maria and Matrona Groshev, loved by all, called in the village "nannies". With the novices, Daria and Paraskeva sang on the choir. The bringing up of the little Nicholas was left wholly to Paraskeva and Daria. They taught him to pray. With great respect for Father Nazarius, they taught the boy a prayer which astonished him in that all that was asked in it was fulfilled: "By the prayers of my father, Archpriest Nazarius, Lord, help me in such and such a matter..." By the prayers of his martyr father Nicholas lived all his life.

In February 1931 a pilgrim woman, Varvara Kryukova, from the village of Domozhirovo, Bogorodsk district, appeared in the village of Tugoles and settled with the nuns who served in the church. At the beginning of March the local authorities pressed measures of self-⁠taxation of peasants and the founding of collective farms. In one village, in the house where the pilgrim had stayed this time, the peasants' cows were seized for arrears. The housewife ran out into the street crying, "They are taking the cows, they are ruining us, let us take the cattle back from the village council." A crowd gathered and tried to take back its cattle from the council. The attempt had no result, but the guilty were sought, and the pilgrim was suspected of incitement. On 22 March the secretary of the village council arrested her and sent her to the prison at Shatura. At the search a hand-⁠copied religious letter was found on her, and an appeal to the Orthodox people of the Local Council of 1917; this was enough to presume a link between the pilgrim and the priests of the church of Tugoles and to charge the priests with agitation against the founding of collective farms. On 23 March the priests of the Pyatnitskaya church, Nazarius Gribkov and John Bogolepov, who was then sixty-⁠eight, the chairman of the church council Ivan Leontievich Pankratov, and the deacon's daughter Alexandra Semyonovna Yablonskaya, were arrested, the latter accused of having testified to the miracle of the renewal of an icon. She had an icon of the Chernigov Mother of God on which the face was barely visible; she gave it to a woman and after a time the woman announced that the face was plainly visible. The icon was brought to the church, and Father John Bogolepov served a blessing of water before it. Later the authorities laid this to the charge of the priests.

The secretary of the village council, called for questioning, said that the priest Nazarius Gribkov, "during the work of collectivization of agriculture, gave from the pulpit a sermon saying that the harvest depends on God; what God plans, that He will do. With this sermon he brought those praying to tears. The aim of the sermon was to wreck collectivization, since if the harvest depends on God, why build collective farms, one must only pray and not join the collective farm." Questioned, the accused did not admit guilt. Father Nazarius answered drily, with a touch of humour here and there: he had lived at Tugoles about a year and a half, having moved from Pochinki for family reasons; Bogolepov, Pankratov and Yablonskaya he had met only there; he gave sermons, but without touching Soviet power; he had carried on no anti-⁠Soviet agitation. On 4 April the inquiry was ended. The same day Father Nazarius wrote to the OGPU agent: "I have a four-⁠year-⁠old child, left among strangers because of my arrest, one might say to the whim of fate. Today, 4 April, I have been told that the inquiry is ended, so the further course of the case can change nothing. Therefore I ask to be released until the trial." The request was refused. On 10 April 1931 the OGPU troika sentenced the priests John Bogolepov and Nazarius Gribkov to five years of exile in Kazakhstan.

After Father Nazarius went into exile, his son Nicholas was brought up by Daria and Paraskeva. Before his departure they said to him, "Father Nazarius, do not take Kolya with you, let him be with us and we shall care for him." Two and a half years Father Nazarius spent in Alma-⁠Ata and two years in Aktyubinsk. From exile he sent them apples, since they had no garden, and once he sent his son felt boots of camel wool, which he wore a long time. In 1934 Paraskeva went with Nicholas to visit Father Nazarius at Aktyubinsk. The priest met them on the platform; in exile he had aged greatly. He lived alone in a clay cottage and worked as an accountant, had enough money and had made friends with many, among them exiled officers of the tsarist army. Paraskeva and Nicholas stayed with him a month. In the spring of 1936 Father Nazarius returned home. Someone knocked at the door: "Who is there?" "Your own," answered Father Nazarius. The joy was without end, and Daria at once set about baking pies.

Returned from exile, he served in the same church. At every service he took his son with him, set him by the north door in the altar and showed him what to do. Father Nazarius, remembering what importance church singing had had in his own life, tried to teach his son too, but the boy had no musical gift. In life the priest was hospitable and generous, and often had guests, whom he treated with all he had. Nicholas's spiritual father became Archpriest George Kolokolov, who served in the same church; the two priests lived with one mind, as if competing in virtues, without quarrels. It was a time of fierce persecution, and the protodeacon Sergei Pavlovich Turikov, a friend of Father Nazarius, from the Epiphany cathedral in Moscow, proposed to him: "Father Nazarius, come with me to Moscow, there it is not as in the village, priests are not persecuted and taken. Leave Nicholas with the nannies for a time and come with me." The priest answered, "I am guilty of nothing, why should I be afraid? Why should I leave my son and go away? No, Father Sergius, I shall stay here, with my own."

On 28 November 1937 Archpriest Nazarius was arrested. That day Nicholas had gone with the village boys to skate on the frozen swamp, but the skating did not go well; returning home, he saw a lorry by the house and the chairman of the village council Vasily Yazykov and two militiamen in command inside. On 5 December 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced to death Archpriest George and Archpriest Nazarius, and the psalm-⁠reader Peter Tsarapkin to ten years in a camp, where he died. Archpriest George Kolokolov was shot on 9 December, and Archpriest Nazarius Gribkov on 11 December 1937 at the Butovo range near Moscow, both buried in unknown common graves. He is commemorated on 9 December, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo (a movable day), on 23 June with the Synaxis of the Saints of Ryazan and on 5 September with the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow (a movable day).