Nicholas Klementyev

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas (Klementyev), archbishop of Veliky Ustyug, was shot on 31 December 1937 in Kazakhstan, in exile. He was numbered among the saints by the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000. He is commemorated on 18 December, Old Style (31 December New Style), the day of his death.

Priest at Petersburg

In the world he was called Nicholas Fyodorovich Klementyev. According to the Russian source he was born on 6 (18) October 1875 in the village of Losevo, Nerekhta district, Kostroma governorate, into the family of the priest Fyodor Nikolaevich Bardakov; our record gives the year 1873 and we cannot decide between the two. In 1899 he graduated from the Theological Academy of Petersburg, as candidate of theology, and was teacher of logic, then of Latin, at the Alexander Nevsky religious school. On 7 May 1904 he became priest at the church of Saint George at the Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery in Petersburg and catechist at the children's orphanage at Okhta; from 1908 he served at the church of the Holy Spirit on Bolshaya Okhta, of which he was rector from 1919, and in the same year 1919 was made archpriest. Between 1920 and 1922 he was dean of the tenth deanery of the churches of Petrograd.

In 1922 he was arrested in the "case of Metropolitan Benjamin", for resistance to the seizure of church valuables, and sentenced to three years of strict imprisonment, but after nine months was released. In 1923 Bishop Manuel of Luga asked Patriarch Tikhon to restore the Okhta vicariate, recommending the "beloved of all" widowed archpriest, who had served seventeen years at the Okhta cathedral, and the patriarch gave his consent. The ordination did not take place then and was asked for again in 1924.

Bishop and exile

After tonsure as a monk, on 23 June 1924, he was consecrated bishop of Sestroretsk, vicar of the diocese of Petrograd; the consecration was performed by Patriarch Tikhon himself. He opposed the Renovationist movement. On 18 December 1925 he was arrested for going about the parish churches and serving in them, and exiled for three years to Eastern Siberia, in the Irkutsk governorate. Between 1929 and 1931 he lived at Tver and only in 1931 received leave to return to Leningrad; two years later he had to leave the city. From 22 March 1933 he was bishop of Nikolsk and administrator of the diocese of Veliky Ustyug, and from 9 July 1934 archbishop of Veliky Ustyug.

On 7 December 1935 he was arrested, accused of gathering around himself the most "reactionary" and anti-⁠Soviet part of the clergy and, under pretext of diocesan meetings, holding assemblies against the measures of the authorities. On 3 September 1936 an NKVD troika sentenced him to five years of exile in Kazakhstan. He served his exile in the village of Vannovka, Tyulkubas district, South Kazakhstan region.

Last arrest and death

On 23 December 1937 he was arrested by the district NKVD office and accused of anti-⁠Soviet activity; he did not plead guilty. The NKVD troika of the South Kazakhstan region sentenced him to death on 30 December 1937 and he was shot the next day. Died together with him, without admitting guilt, the priest John Nikolaevich Mironsky (1877 to 1937), the priest Vladimir Grigorievich Preobrazhensky (1873 to 1937) and Victor Matveevich Matveev (1871 to 1937), "the wanderer Victor", known as a clairvoyant elder. All were numbered among the saints, the new martyrs and confessors of Russia, at the jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000.