Nicholas Dobroumov

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Dobroumov was a priest in the Komi land and was shot at Syktyvkar on 25 August 1937.

His life

He was born on 24 December 1876 (by some sources, 1875) in the village of Nebdino in the Ust-⁠Sysolsk district of the Vologda province, the youngest of the five children of the priest Nicholas Mikhailovich Dobroumov. His childhood passed at Ust-⁠Kulom, where his father was rector of the church of Saints Peter and Paul. He finished the theological school at Ust-⁠Sysolsk and, in 1899, the seminary at Vologda. Soon he married Antonina, the youngest daughter of the priest Mikhail Konstantinovich Popov of Mezhador, a nephew of the Komi poet I. A. Kuratov. After the marriage he kept vows of chastity and lived with his wife as brother and sister, following the example of Saint John of Kronstadt. His wife tried several times to leave him, but her family did not support her. Father Nicholas remained to the end of his life a monk in the world.

On 29 September 1899 Bishop Gabriel of Veliky Ustyug ordained him priest for the church of the Dormition at Pomozdino, then he served at Ust-⁠Kulom and, from 1906, as rector of the church at Anyb. Everywhere he laboured for the enlightenment of the people: he taught religion in the zemstvo schools, led the parish school at Anyb and chaired the parish trusteeship. In 1909 and 1913 he received medals. The chronicle of the Anyb church tells that in 1909 he received the icon of Saint Anna of Kashin, newly glorified, whose life he read in the Zyryan language. In 1910 he laboured for the transfer of the relics of Saint Stephen of Perm to Ust-⁠Sysolsk, but the Holy Synod gave no blessing. He raised and blessed a bell of 53 poods. In the war of 1915 he chaired the parish council for helping soldiers' families, which supported ninety-⁠one families. In 1917 he witnessed a wandering of the people, when the crowd led four naked persons out before the committee; on 25 May, at Pentecost vespers, he gave a teaching on what had happened, admonishing his parishioners like children, without condemning them.

Arrest and death

After the revolution he served at the church of the Ascension in the village of Don, in the Ust-⁠Kulom district, and saw it closed in 1935. Soon he was arrested and imprisoned at Syktyvkar. The investigation established that he held illegal gatherings in his home, where under the guise of services he carried on counter-⁠revolutionary agitation. He did not admit guilt. On 23 August 1937 the NKVD troika of Komi sentenced him to death, and on 25 August 1937 he was shot at Syktyvkar.

He is remembered on 25 August, on 11 February in the Synaxis of the Komi Saints, and on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, in the new style.