Nicholas Florov

Holy Confessor Nicholas Florov was an archpriest in the Vyatka province, a preacher and writer, and he died on 3 July 1933, on the day of his release from a Vyatka prison in which he had been held for founding a community.

Priest and preacher

The archpriest Nicholas Semyonovich Florov was born on 10 October 1870 in the village of Pusheiskoye in the Slobodskoy district of the Vyatka province, in the family of the priest Simeon Florov. In 1886 he finished the theological school at Yaransk and in 1894 the seminary at Vyatka, and was named teacher at the parish school of the village of Yuma. In 1895 he married Vera Filippovna Shubina, daughter of the priest of the Entry church in Kobra, finding in his father-⁠in-⁠law a good guide. On 15 August 1895 he was ordained priest. He served a year at the church of Saint Elijah in Puzhe-⁠Ucha, also teaching religion, and in 1896 was sent as priest to Gostevo, where he wrote the parish chronicle of the church of the Ascension, praised by the historian Vereshchagin; for this he received the hip-⁠shield in 1900 and in 1901 was moved to the church of Saint Demetrius in the village of Molotnikovo, of which he was rector from 13 January 1903. There he led the parish trusteeship, beautified the church and, in Great Lent, held popular readings on the Holy Land. From 1899 he contributed to the Vyatka Diocesan Gazette. In 1911 Bishop Philaret moved him to the village of Musha, where he united the parish, preached much and taught religion. In November 1914 he was moved to Kotelnich, to the Holy Trinity Cathedral. He wrote and published more than a hundred and twenty sermons and addresses in 1914-1915, with particular attention to the fate of simple people, wrote of the heroes fallen at the front and called for mercy toward the wounded. From October 1916 he was teacher of religion at the girls' gymnasium in Kotelnich and priest of the gymnasium church, and after the February revolution, until the Bolshevik coup, he directed the gymnasium.

Confession

Later he spoke at a diocesan congress in Vyatka criticising the Renovationist movement. In September 1929 Bishop Stephen of Vyatka named him rector of the Annunciation church in Okatievo; his colleague wrote to the diocesan council that Father Nicholas went about in rags, unthinkable even for the local beggars, and that in winter they served in an unheated chapel at sixteen degrees below zero; he himself wrote to his wife that he lived quietly, read Saint Theophan and wrote spiritual music. In 1929 the church was closed, and at Gostevo his house and all his belongings were taken. Called then to Kobra, he accepted, though there four priests and a deacon had been arrested in two years, knowing that he too would soon be arrested. Nearly a year before the arrest he wrote with a pencil on an old sheet: "I remain among Christians for ever. 28 October 1931."

He was arrested in October 1932. Witnesses showed that in January 1932 he had urged, at the end of the services, the defence of the church. To Archbishop Eugene (Zernov) he wrote from the Kotelnich prison that he had been deprived of freedom for "registering the parish", that he had done his pastoral duty by opening the community and serving, and that he was following apostolic zeal. At the inquiry he denied guilt, naming no one. He was sentenced to three years of exile in the Northern Territory but, gravely ill, was released from the Vyatka prison on 3 July 1933, when the prisons were being emptied because they were overcrowded, and he departed to the Lord on the same day.

He is remembered on 3 July, on 21 October in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vyatka, and on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, in the new style.