Nicholas Maslov

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Maslov was a priest in the city of Tver and died in prison on 17 January 1939.

He was born in 1874 in Tver, and was named Nicholas Ivanovich Maslov. After the theological school and the pastoral courses he was ordained priest in 1924 and served at Tver, at the church of the Icon of the Mother of God "The Burning Bush" across the Volga. When almost all the city's churches were closed, among them the Ascension Cathedral, Archbishop Thaddeus (Uspensky), who served in it, moved to the "Burning Bush" church, a cemetery site with the white church on a hill among greenery, and the clergy still at liberty often gathered there. For Father Nicholas serving with the archbishop was unforgettable: his very presence cleansed the soul and showed all that was sinful and unworthy in it.

The persecution of 1937 left almost no priest of Tver at liberty. On 3 November 1937 Father Nicholas was arrested too. Asked about acquaintances, he said he knew only the priests who served with him at the "Burning Bush". Asked about the "former bishop Uspensky", he corrected: not a former bishop, but Archbishop Thaddeus, with whom he had only service ties. Charged with being a participant in a counter-⁠revolutionary fascist-⁠monarchist organisation led by the archbishop, he denied it. Witnesses on duty, Renovationists, signed false testimony at the investigator's request. On 2 December 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years in a labour camp. During the inquiry he fell gravely ill, and his health worsened quickly. In July 1938 he was moved from Tver to the prison in the settlement of Lykoshino, where, after a long and heavy illness, he died on 17 January 1939.

He is remembered on 17 January, on 18 July (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tver, and on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, in the new style.