Nicholas Dvoritsky

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Dvoritsky was a protodeacon at the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod and later a priest in the village of Lukomo, and was shot at Staraya Russa on 19 November 1937.

Deacon and protodeacon

Nicholas Vasilievich Dvoritsky was born on 7 May 1878 in the hamlet of Degzho in the Dedovichi district of the Pskov province, in a priest's family. He entered the seminary at Pskov, and in his fifth year was released from the students at his own request and ordained deacon, in 1898, at twenty years of age, for the church of Saint Michael in the village of Dno, Porkhov district. So early an ordination was rare and showed his spiritual qualities. The parish of Dno, with about two thousand five hundred parishioners, was large and lively. From 1905 he was catechist of the first zemstvo school, and in 1908 the archpastoral gratitude was expressed to him. In July 1909 Archbishop Arsenius (Stadnitsky), a future candidate for the patriarchal throne, visited the parish and became his friend. In 1911, after the archbishop was transferred to Novgorod, Father Nicholas was named protodeacon, on probation, at the Saint Sophia Cathedral, and within a year he was confirmed in the rank. Archbishop Arsenius was a connoisseur of the services, exacting above all with deacons and choristers.

The priest

In 1918 he was ordained priest and named rector of the Kazan church in the hamlet of Lukomo. In 1930 he was arrested on the charge of anti-⁠Soviet activity and sentenced to five years in a camp. His family, his wife, son, daughter-⁠in-⁠law and one-⁠year-⁠old granddaughter, was sent from the Pskov region to the North as "socially dangerous"; in the questionnaire of 1937 he wrote: "Widower. Alone." He returned in 1934, but the church and parish at Lukomo had been abolished, the house and property confiscated. He found shelter in the village of Ninkovo, with the nun Evdokia Karabanova. He tried in vain to find a place of service and wrote to the bishop of Leningrad.

On 21 October 1937 he was arrested again and imprisoned at Staraya Russa. At the interrogations he showed rare courage, broken neither by torture nor by the thought of death, and bore his cross with dignity. On 1 November 1937 his file was sent to the special NKVD troika of the Leningrad region, which sentenced him to death. He was shot on 6 (19) November, the day of the commemoration of Saint Barlaam of Khutyn, in the prison of Staraya Russa and buried in an unknown place.

He is remembered on 19 November, on 11 July (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Novgorod and Pskov, and on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, in the new style.