Nicholas Mezentsev

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Mezentsev was an archpriest at Simferopol, in the Crimea, and was shot in February 1938.

His life

He was born on 8 September 1863 in the village of Krasnaya Slobodka in the Trubchevsk district of the Oryol province, in the family of the psalm-⁠reader Dimitri Mezentsev. He lost his mother at five and his father at twelve, and received his theological education at the state's expense, then was named a teacher at the Taurida seminary. Bishop Martinian (Muratovsky) of Taurida and Simferopol ordained him priest and named him confessor of the seminary. In 1903 he was moved to the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God at the Taranov-⁠Belozerov hospital in Simferopol and named teacher of religion at the girls' gymnasium; later he was raised to archpriest.

At Simferopol he met the revolution, the rule of General Wrangel, the last battles between Whites and Reds and the departure of the Volunteer Army. One of his sons was an officer in Wrangel's army, but after the evacuation he stayed with a group of officers at Simferopol; Father Nicholas helped them hide in the attic of the house of a spiritual daughter. When their staying became dangerous, they decided to go to the sea at Sevastopol, and he blessed them; they parted for ever. Arrived at Sevastopol, they were arrested and shot.

Persecution

In March 1922, at the confiscation of valuables, a woman rang the alarm bell, the church filled with people, but that did not stop the commission from finishing; the priest, the reader and the woman were arrested. Between 5 November and 1 December 1922 a public trial was held at Simferopol in which Archbishop Nikodim (Krotkov) of Taurida and almost all the clergy of the diocese were accused; among them was Father Nicholas, who did not admit guilt. He was sentenced to three years and sent to the prison at Nizhny Novgorod, but after nine months all those condemned were released. Returned to Simferopol, he served at the cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, then, when the Renovationists seized it, at the Greek church of the Holy Trinity.

In 1933 he was arrested on the charge of having hidden valuables of the cathedral and, after some months of inquiry, was sentenced to a fine. Meanwhile the church of the Holy Trinity had been closed, and the parishioners, among them many Greek subjects, asked for its reopening through the Greek mission in Moscow, in which Father Nicholas helped them with petitions to the authorities and advice. The authorities yielded, and in 1934 the church was reopened, with an eighty-⁠five-⁠year-⁠old Greek priest as rector and Father Nicholas as his assistant: he celebrated services, read and sang in the choir.

On 15 December 1937 he was arrested on the charge of having hidden church valuables, of having helped his son, a White officer, to hide, and of having supported the Greek community in its efforts to reopen the church, "thus stirring the population against the authorities", and, knowing of the counter-⁠revolutionary Greek nationalist organisation, of not having declared it. He did not admit guilt. Two false witnesses, one a cellmate and the other a member of the "twenty", signed the records. On 14 February 1938 an NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and he was shot.

He is remembered on 14 February, on 2 December in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Crimean Metropolis, on 28 December in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Crimea, and on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, in the new style.