Nicholas Georgievsky

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Georgievsky was an archpriest and dean at Bolshevo, near Moscow, and he died in the transit prison at Alma-⁠Ata on 10 September 1931.

He was born in 1865 in the village of Kolomenskoye, Nagatino volost, Moscow province, in the family of the priest Sergius Georgievsky. He finished the Moscow seminary in 1886, was ordained priest and served in the churches of the Moscow diocese. At the beginning of the twentieth century he served at the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in the settlement of Bolshevo, built at the end of the eighteenth century. In 1900, through his labours and those of local benefactors, the southern side chapel of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God was completed. He was raised to the rank of archpriest and for a long time, including in the time of persecution, was dean of the churches in the Mytishchi district.

At the beginning of 1930 unbelievers succeeded in closing the church of Cosmas and Damian, but the faithful did not accept the decision and sent delegates to the authorities with a request for reopening. Father Nicholas asked the faithful to prevent the destruction of the church, and on 15 April 1930 the church was reopened and put in order after being ransacked. In revenge, representatives of the authorities gathered information for his arrest. Witnesses on duty told the investigators that the priest addressed believing women from the ambo, told them that the authorities wanted to close the church and asked them to influence their husbands, even if they were communists. Once, at Pascha 1931, greeting the faithful, he is said to have said that, thank God, they had lived to celebrate it, but perhaps would not again, because the communists were pressing.

He was arrested on 14 July 1931 and imprisoned at Mytishchi. On 26 July he was interrogated and answered every question that he did not admit guilt and refused to testify. On 28 July an OGPU troika sentenced him to three years of exile in Kazakhstan. He died on 10 September 1931 in the transit prison at Alma-⁠Ata. Learning of his death, his daughter asked for a death certificate to enter into the inheritance of the house, and the OGPU troika decided, as an addition to the sentence of exile, to confiscate the house left after his death.

He is remembered on 10 September, on 5 September (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, and on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, in the new style.