Nestor Panin

Holy Hieromartyr Nestor Panin was a priest in Semipalatinsk, in present-⁠day Kazakhstan, and was shot in 1937 for his faith, in the time of the Bolshevik persecution.

He was born in 1881 in the city of Semipalatinsk and chose the pastoral path. He studied at the Tomsk Theological Seminary and was ordained for the Resurrection Cathedral of his native city. After years of diligent service he was raised to the rank of archpriest.

He was arrested on 28 August 1937, on the feast of the Dormition. The NKVD charged him with being a member of a counter-⁠revolutionary spy organisation of churchmen. Father Nestor did not admit guilt and refused to testify against anyone else. On 19 November the NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and in the night of 22 November, at two o'clock, he was shot.

In the year 2000 the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church numbered him among the saints. He is remembered on 22 November and, with the other new martyrs and confessors, on 7 February (a movable day), in the new style.