Nicander Grivsky

Holy Hieromartyr Nicander Grivsky was a priest in the Pskov province, twice condemned by the Soviet authorities, who died in the camp at Obozersky, in the Arkhangelsk region, on 2 October 1939.

Life as a priest

He was born on 26 June 1880 in the village of Bolchino, in the Pskov district, in the family of the priest Simeon Grivsky. He finished the seminary in 1901 and was a psalm-⁠reader until 1905. In 1905 he married Olga Sergeyevna Belyaninova, the daughter of a Toropets merchant, and they had five children. In 1912 he was ordained deacon and, in the same year, priest, at the church of the Nativity of Christ in the hamlet of Pochep, in the Toropets district, where his aged father was then serving. The church was of wood, built in 1868, and the parish embraced twenty-⁠eight villages with about a thousand people. Father Nicander was a true shepherd to them, helping the poorest not only with words but with deeds. In 1916 his wife, a son and a daughter died of dysentery, and he was left with two sons of ten and five and a daughter of three.

Persecution and death

In September 1929 his son Peter, while drunk, stole a blasting device used for demolition work, and a case was opened. The OGPU wanted to learn what ties the family had, and Father Nicander, greatly respected in the village, was arrested on 13 January 1930. In the search a petition was found, signed by dozens of peasants, asking that the tax in produce due from the priest be lowered, saying that they actually paid him in money. The authorities took it as proof that he was gathering the people against the grain levies. During the inquiry he explained that he had been ordered to deliver 120 poods of grain and 350 poods of potatoes, that his household had been sold at auction, and that he had made no agitation against the authorities.

On 4 March 1930 an OGPU troika sentenced him to ten years in a camp, and his son Peter and the church warden, Basil Chuprov, to five years. They were sent to Solovki. In 1932 Father Nicander, being an invalid, was given exile in the town of Kargopol until the end of his term. His request of 1936 for early release was refused.

On 27 July 1938 he was arrested again, in Kargopol, on the testimony of exiled priests, who said that he spoke against the authorities, that he had made his home a house of prayer, and that he helped the exiles through the nun Augusta. He did not admit guilt and called the testimonies false. On 3 August 1939 a court sentenced him to five years in a camp and three years' loss of electoral rights. He was sent to the Obozersky camp point near the town of Nyandoma, and his appeal was rejected. He died there on 2 October 1939 and was buried in an unknown place.

He is remembered on 2 October, on 1 November in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Archangelsk Metropolis, on 7 February (a movable day) with the New Martyrs, on 18 July in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tver and on 23 August in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Solovki, in the new style.