Nicanor Morozkin

Holy Hieromartyr Nicanor (in the world Nikifor Mikhailovich Morozkin) was an archimandrite, the last abbot, before the closing of the monastery, of the Saint Nicholas Monastery of Pererva in Moscow (Nikolo-⁠Perervinsky), born on 13 March 1870 in the village of Vyzheles, Spassk district, Ryazan governorate, and shot on 1 July 1938 at the Butovo firing range. He was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2005. He is commemorated on 1 July (18 June by the old calendar), the day of his death, on the fourth Saturday after Pascha (the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo) and on the Sunday before the feast of the Meeting of the Vladimir icon of the Mother of God (the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow).

He was born into a peasant family of the Ryazan governorate; his father earned a living as a cooper. He grew up in the village of Studenki, Izyum district, Kharkov governorate. On coming of age he went to Orenburg (1888). He was distinguished by piety; already when living in Orenburg he sang in the church choir and served as psalm-⁠reader. From Orenburg he moved to Moscow, where in 1899 he entered as a novice the Nikolo-⁠Perervinsky monastery (then in the Moscow district, far from the city, surrounded by villages; today within the city, inside the MKAD ring road). In 1903 he was tonsured a monk with the name Nicanor, in 1904 ordained hierodeacon, and in 1909 hieromonk; the ordination took place in the cathedral of Christ the Saviour and was performed by Bishop Tryphon (Turkestanov) of Dmitrov.

In 1917 he was appointed confessor of the monastery's brotherhood. In 1920 he was entrusted with the care of the Iveron chapel at the Resurrection Gates, in the centre of Moscow, regarded as attached to the Nikolo-⁠Perervinsky monastery and the main source of the monastery's income. In 1921 the chapel was robbed by unknown persons; the robbers were not caught, but Hieromonk Nicanor was accused by the Soviet authority of negligence and spent almost a year in prison, then was acquitted by a court. In 1923 he was raised to the rank of hegumen and, somewhat later in the same year, to that of archimandrite; he led the Nikolo-⁠Perervinsky monastery until 1932.

In February 1932 he was arrested and imprisoned at Butyrka. At the interrogations he did not admit guilt: he did not consider himself guilty of the charge brought, considered himself bound to perform among the peasants the services for which he was invited, and had never entered into conversations about politics with the peasants; personally he believed that the Soviet power did not persecute the Church but the clergy, who were being held innocent in prisons. In March 1932 he was sentenced to five years of exile in Kazakhstan. In exile he lived in Alma-⁠Ata, but after a year received permission to return to Moscow (he was released as an invalid), after which he lived in the village of Spas-⁠Ostashevo, Volokolamsk district, and served in the church of the Transfiguration there. In 1938 he was arrested a second time. He was held first in the Volokolamsk prison, then in the Taganka prison in Moscow. In the course of the investigation he again refused to admit guilt. On 14 June 1938 the NKVD troika sentenced him to the supreme penalty, and on 1 July 1938 he was shot at the Butovo firing range and buried there in the common grave.