Nicholas Dobronravov

Saint Nicholas Dobronravov, Hieromartyr, archbishop of Vladimir and Suzdal, was a Russian scholar, teacher and bishop who stood firmly on the side of the Church in the years of Soviet persecution. He was born on 21 November 1861 in the village of Ignatovka in the Dmitrov district, Moscow province, in the family of a priest, and was shot on 10 December 1937 at the Butovo firing range near Moscow. He was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in August 2000. His commemoration is on 10 December (27 November in the old calendar) and on the day of the Synaxis of the New Martyrs.

Studies and service as a priest

He finished the Zaikonospassky ecclesiastical school (1875), the Moscow seminary (1881) and the Moscow Theological Academy, with the title of candidate of theology (1885) and then master (1886, with the work "The Book of the Prophet Joel"). He was married to Anna Alexandrovna Ivantsova-⁠Platonova. In 1885 he became teacher of Holy Scripture and of dogmatic, moral and fundamental theology at the Bethany seminary. He was ordained deacon, then priest. From 1890 he was catechist and rector of the church of the Alexandrovsky military school in Moscow, and from 1894 also catechist at the 7th boys' gymnasium, at the Polivanova gymnasium and at Arsenieva's, as archpriest of the church of the Holy Great Martyr Nikita in Staryie Tolmachi. He published biblical and church-⁠historical studies.

From 1905 he was one of the most liberal members of the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment, which became then the centre of supporters of church reforms, and led its commission on church and confessional questions. From 1914 he was deputy chairman of the Brotherhood of Catechists. In 1915 he received the Order of Saint Vladimir, fourth class.

In 1917 he was a member of the Moscow diocesan council, delegate to the congress of clergy and laity, worked in the first and second sections of the Pre-⁠Conciliar Council and was a member of the Holy Local Council of the Russian Church, taking part in all three sessions. He spoke strongly against restoring the patriarchate, reminding the Council that the Holy Synod had been recognized by all local Orthodox Churches, and urged the delegates not to be troubled but to believe that the Lord himself would preserve His Church. He observed that in the first three centuries of Christian history there were no patriarchs, and on the 34th Apostolic Canon, to which supporters of the patriarchate most often referred, he stressed the words "the bishops of every nation must know who is first among them", which meant, to him, that within the bounds of one state there could be several patriarchs. After the election of Patriarch Tikhon he became one of his associates. When the Bolsheviks shelled the Alexandrovsky school building in November 1917, several officers' families found shelter in his apartment, and he took part in the burial of the cadets and officers who fell.

In 1918 he was named rector of the church of All Saints on Varvarka Square. On 19 August 1918 he was taken by Commissar Stanislav Redens to the Cheka for a certificate about the search made in the church, but was arrested and searched. No charge was brought against him, and Redens wrote that he was "a type harmful to the revolution" who, at liberty, would not sit quietly, and proposed sending him to a concentration camp. The Cheka leadership did not accept the proposal. He was held in Butyrka prison (cell 78) and released in April 1919. From 1920 he was rector of the Krutitsy Dormition cathedral.

Bishop

Widowed, he was tonsured a monk and on 31 July 1921 was consecrated bishop of Zvenigorod, vicar of the Moscow diocese. In 1922, for his firm opposition to the Renovationist movement, he was arrested and sentenced to one year of exile in the town of Ust-⁠Sysolsk. Returned to Moscow, in April to June 1924 he was in Butyrka prison, accused that, having great authority, he carried on counter-⁠revolutionary agitation among the clergy and in connection with the beating of a member of the workers' and peasants' inspectorate. Without any evidence, he was released. From 1924 he was archbishop of Vladimir and Suzdal.

In November 1925 he was arrested together with a group of Moscow hierarchs, supporters of the locum tenens, Metropolitan Peter, and held in the OGPU internal prison at Lubyanka. In January 1926 Metropolitan Peter, at interrogation, named him among the hierarchs whose opinion he took most into account. On 1 February 1926 Metropolitan Peter named him first bishop of a college of three archbishops who were to govern the Church provisionally, which showed great trust in him. But Archbishop Nicholas was in prison (which Peter did not know) and could not begin the work, and the college never met.

In prison he was asked whether he knew of the letter of the historian Sergei Mansurov to the locum tenens, which showed that it was not canonically obligatory to follow the line of the so-⁠called "testament" of Patriarch Tikhon, that is, compromise with Soviet power. The investigator tried to obtain convenient testimony, but did not succeed. Fr Sergei Sidorov, arrested in the same case, recalled later that at a confrontation in November 1925 Archbishop Nicholas came in, looked attentively at the investigator, who broke into shouts, and stopped him with authority: "Drink valerian and calm down. I do not understand the growling of beasts and will answer you when you speak humanly. And put away your toy." The investigator hid his revolver and began to question him politely, and in that interrogation the archbishop managed to clear Mansurov. The same Sidorov tells that, after twenty-⁠three interrogations, almost ready to give in and to slander himself and his friends, in the night of 8 to 9 January 1926 the archbishop was brought in and demanded that Sidorov be left in peace, and forbade Sidorov, by a bishop's authority, to say anything to the investigator. Sidorov was led out to the corridor and heard the investigator's furious cursing. He wrote that he owed the archbishop deliverance from the greatest misfortune, that of giving his friends into the hands of the enemies of the faith and the Church.

He was sentenced by the Special Board of the OGPU college to three years of exile in Siberia (Fr Sidorov and Mansurov were released). From June 1926 to April 1929 he was in exile in the settlement of Poloi in the Turukhansk region, then moved to Veliky Ustyug in the North, where the local authorities regarded him as the leader of church counter-⁠revolution in the town. After the exile ended, in 1932, he was allowed to live anywhere except six large cities, with a fixed residence for three years, and when the term ran out he settled in Moscow.

He led a strictly ascetic life and spent his nights in prayer. In his relations with people he was unusually simple, attentive and loving. He drew up a project for reorganizing the parish, in which he showed the need for charity in the parish and for free performance of necessary services, at the expense of the whole parish.

Arrest and martyrdom

He was arrested again on 27 October 1937. Among other things he was accused of having said to those around him that the Church and clergy must be defended and that "every believer must oppose the measures of Soviet power, not allow churches to be closed, collect signatures, make complaints, and above all the clergy must explain to the faithful the sense of what is happening, that Soviet power is a passing thing". At the inquiry he did not admit guilt of "counter-⁠revolutionary agitation" and participation in an illegal organization, "the True Orthodox Church". On 7 December 1937 he was condemned to death by the NKVD troika for the Moscow region, and he was shot on 10 December 1937 and buried at the NKVD firing range at Butovo.

Canonization

He was numbered among the saints, the new martyrs and confessors of Russia, at the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000, for veneration throughout the Church. His feast was set on 10 December (27 November in the old calendar) and on the day of the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors. Some biographies say that from 1889 he was a priest at the Perm cathedral and in 1891 rector of the Perm seminary, but those data belong to his namesake, Konstantin Mikhailovich Dobronravov.

Writings

He left many works of biblical and church-⁠historical study, among them "The Book of the Prophet Joel" (1885), "The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Appearances after the Resurrection" (1891), "Saint Alexis, Metropolitan of All Russia" (1895), "Care of the Sick in Ancient Christianity" (1904), "The Mystery of Holy Unction" (1904), "The Participation of Clergy and Laity in Ancient Councils" (1906), "The Election of Bishops in Ancient Christianity" (1907), "Chorepiscopi in Ancient Christianity" (1907), "Deaconesses in Ancient Christianity" (1912) and "Do We Need a Patriarch?" (1917).