Nicholas Konyukhov

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Konyukhov was an archpriest and rector of the Resurrection Cathedral of Cherdyn, in the Perm province, and was shot in December 1918 by the retreating Reds.

He was born in 1860 in the family of the priest Peter Konyukhov. In 1879 he finished the Perm seminary and was named teacher and teacher of religion at the primary school of Kamgorta, in the Cherdyn district, and in 1886 at the school of Tsidva. On 4 October 1887 he was ordained priest for the church of the Entry into the Temple in Kamgorta, and in 1889 he was moved to the Resurrection Cathedral of Cherdyn and named teacher of religion at the town girls' school. For good teaching of religion he received thanks in 1889. Between 1897 and 1899 he was elected district confessor, between 1899 and 1905 assistant dean, and between 1905 and 1911 dean; between 1899 and 1906 he taught religion at the girls' progymnasium and between 1901 and 1907 he gave talks on the Orthodox faith to the soldiers of the convoy guard. In 1906 he received the pectoral cross, and on 27 December 1908 he was raised to archpriest. In the years of his service at the cathedral, between 1909 and 1911, the refectory, side chapels and porch were enlarged, and a tall eight-⁠sided bell tower became the ornament of Cherdyn.

In 1913 a decree was issued naming another priest rector of the cathedral, which deeply saddened the parishioners; in October they sent Bishop Palladius two petitions, signed by a hundred and five and by eighty-⁠five persons, and on 9 November they wrote to the chief procurator of the Holy Synod, asking that Father Nicholas be left as rector for his twenty-⁠four years of service and for his work of rebuilding the cathedral. On 13 May 1914 the consistory left him rector, and he served at the cathedral until his martyrdom.

In December 1918 he was shot by the Bolsheviks near the village of Yurla, where the Red guards fled under pressure from the Whites, taking arrested persons with them. The priest's body was found in February of the following year, lying in the snow with arms crossed on his chest and a wound through the head, and was taken to Cherdyn, where Father Nicholas was buried with solemnity.

He is remembered on 20 June, on 14 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Perm Metropolis, and on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, in the new style.