Nicander Chernelevsky

Holy Hieromartyr Nicander Chernelevsky was a priest and was shot in a Siberian camp on 3 November 1937.

He was born in 1880 in the town of Kholm, in the Chernigov province, in a craftsman's family, and the Chernelevsky line came from peasants. He finished the Kholm Seminary in 1901 and was ordained priest the following year. His prisoner's record in the camp noted that he knew English.

On 26 June 1936 he was arrested in Kharkov, and a special panel of the regional court sentenced him to four years for counter-⁠revolutionary agitation. He was sent to serve his term at a point of the Siblag camp, Novo-⁠Ivanovka. On 1 October 1937 he was arrested again, in the camp, on the charge of belonging to a group of bishops and priests who conducted agitation against the authorities among the prisoners. The camp chief wrote of him that he worked little and preached his religious convictions among the others. At the interrogation of 3 October Father Nicander denied the charge and said only that he had lived for a time in the same barracks as the leader of the alleged group.

On 28 October 1937 an NKVD troika of the Novosibirsk region sentenced him to death, together with Archbishop Paulinus (Kroshechkin) and Bishop Arcadius (Ershov). He was shot on 3 November 1937 and buried in an unknown place. In August 2000 the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church numbered him among the new martyrs and confessors.

He is remembered on 3 November, on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs, and on 29 August in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kuzbass, in the new style.