Neophytus Lyubimov

Saint Neophytus Lyubimov, hieromartyr (1846 to 1918), was an archpriest and rector of the church of Saint Spyridon at Kozye Boloto in Moscow, shot in 1918 after serving a memorial service for Tsar Nicholas. He was numbered in August 2000 among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia, in the Synaxis of the saints of Moscow and in that of the saints of Simbirsk. His commemoration in the whole Church is on 17 October (Old Style, 30 October New Style).

Beginnings

He was born in 1846 in the village of Mordovskie Lipyagi (Tabory), in the Samara district, Simbirsk province, in the family of the deacon of the church of Saint Nicholas, Porphyry Lyubimov. He studied at the church school and the seminary at Samara; after finishing the seminary, in 1870, he was sent at state expense to the Theological Academy at Kyiv, which he finished in 1874 with the title of candidate of theology, with the right to seek the title of master without a further examination. In 1874 he was appointed teacher of homiletics, liturgics and pastoral guidance at the seminary at Simbirsk, then, between 1876 and 1882, teacher of Russian language and civil history at the diocesan girls' school and, from 1879, of Russian literature and pedagogy at the Mariinsky girls' gymnasium. From 1885 he was teacher of religion and class inspector at the same school. In 1885 he was ordained priest at the church of the Entry into the Temple of the diocesan school. In the 1900s he served at the church of All Saints in Simbirsk. In 1902 he was appointed rector of the church of the Resurrection at the Vagankovo cemetery in Moscow, where he took part in educational readings for factory workers and gave them lectures at the diocesan house. In 1906 he was raised to archpriest. In 1914 he was appointed rector of the church of Saint Spyridon the Hierarch at Kozye Boloto. He married at Simbirsk Maria, daughter of the merchant Lev Ivanovich Murashkintsev of Ardatov, and they had three children; the youngest daughter, Zinaida, married the missionary Nicholas Varzhansky.

Martyrdom

In May 1918 his son-⁠in-⁠law, the missionary Nicholas Varzhansky, was arrested. On 13 June Father Neophytus wrote to Lenin asking for his release, but received no reply. On 21 July 1918, at the suggestion of Alexander Dmitrievich Samarin, he served in the church a memorial service for "the recently killed Tsar Nicholas". The same evening men of the Cheka arrested him. He was accused of "agitation against the Soviet power" and of serving a memorial service for "the anointed of God" Nicholas Romanov. On 17 September 1918 the presidium of the board of the section for the fight against counter-⁠revolution sentenced him to death; the sentence was carried out. He was buried in the Kalitnikovo cemetery, in a grave now unknown.

Veneration

He was canonized in August 2000 by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. On 21 July 2018 a plaque in his memory was unveiled on the wall of the former diocesan school at Simbirsk, today a veterans' hospital in Ulyanovsk, where he taught; his image is on the gates of the church of the New Martyrs of the Simbirsk land, in the Saviour monastery. He wrote pastoral works, among them "On the Need for Mothers to Attend Themselves to the Upbringing of Children" (1894), "On the Merits of Saints Cyril and Methodius to the Slavic World" (1895), "Autocratic Power According to the Teaching of the Word of God" (1906) and "How We Can Console Our Departed Dear Ones" (1913).