Nicholas Ermolov

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Ermolov was an archpriest of the Russian Church and a new martyr of Novosibirsk. He was born in 1874 and was shot on 26 October 1937 at Novosibirsk. He was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in 2002.

He was the son of a psalmist and graduated from the Samara seminary (1897). He served as psalmist and teacher at Bugulma. From 1900 he was a priest; until 1905 he served at the church in the village of Shoron, Belebey district. From 1906 to 1919 he was priest at the church in the village of Baiki, Birsk district, Ufa province, and from 1920 to 1924 at the church in the village of Doronino (now in the Toguchin district, Novosibirsk region). In 1919 he went to Siberia with the retreating army of Kolchak, where his brother lived. In 1920 he was arrested for the first time, but was not interrogated and was soon released. In 1924, for zealous service to the Church of Christ and courageous opposition to the Renovationist schism, he received an appointment to the village of Ordynskoye, where he was rector, it seems, of the church of the Protection.

A second time he was arrested for two months for non-⁠payment of taxes: in 1933 the village soviet decided that the priest must hand over to the state, within three days, a hundredweight of meat. After two months he was released. On 27 July 1937 Archpriest Nicholas was arrested again, on a charge of organizing counter-⁠revolutionary work and forming insurgent elements in case of war. During the investigation he did not admit guilt of any activity against the state. On 1 October the three-⁠man tribunal of the political police for the West Siberian region sentenced him to death, with confiscation of property.

He was shot on 26 October 1937 at Novosibirsk and buried in an unknown common grave with Priest Innocent Kikin. On 2 August 1958 the presidium of the Novosibirsk regional court annulled the tribunal's decision of 1 October 1937 and closed the case of Archpriest Nicholas Ermolov and Priest Innocent Kikin for lack of a crime. On 24 April 2002, by decision of the Patriarch and the Holy Synod, Archpriest Nicholas Ermolov and Priest Innocent Kikin were numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. The solemn glorification took place at the vigil in the Ascension Cathedral of Novosibirsk on 23 May 2002, with the participation of Patriarch Alexy II.