Nicholas Pavlinov

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Pavlinov was a priest in the Tver diocese and was shot near Tver on 23 September 1937.

Deacon and priest

He was born on 20 November 1881 in the village of Bologoye in the Velikie Luki district of the Pskov province, in the family of the psalm-⁠reader Alexei Pavlinov. He finished the school at Velikie Luki and the theological school. In 1899 he was named reader at the church in Bologoye, in 1907 he was moved to Velikie Luki, and on 24 May 1911 he was ordained deacon for the church of the Holy Trinity. In 1921 he was moved to the church of Saint John the Baptist in Tver. In March 1928 Metropolitan Seraphim (Alexandrov) of Tver ordained him priest and named him rector of the church of the Epiphany in the village of Nikitskoye, near Tver. The parish had been seized by Renovationists, and Father Nicholas was sent there because he was known as unshakeable in Orthodoxy; the parish returned to the Patriarchal Church, and he served half a year. The warden and the reader, sympathisers of the Renovationists, were displeased and succeeded with the help of the authorities in closing the church, which was given to a school.

On 15 September 1928 he asked to be retired and began to wander. He came several times to Moscow and stayed with acquaintances near churches, living on alms. On 8 March 1930, standing at the doors of the Mostorg at Rogozhskaya Zastava and asking for alms, he was taken by a militiaman: "What are you doing here?" "I ask for help. I am walking from one town to another", he answered. He was charged that, "vagrant and begging, he carried on agitation about the persecution of the clergy", and on 23 March 1930 the Special Council of the OGPU sentenced him to three years of exile in the Northern Territory.

After the exile he came to Tver, and Archbishop Thaddeus (Uspensky) named him rector in the village of Berezino, Turginovo district. He served there until 1937. On 10 August 1937 he was arrested and imprisoned at Tver. False witnesses, the chairman and the secretary of the village soviet, said that he had supported the fascist regime in Germany and had urged the peasants with words against the communists. At the interrogation the priest admitted only that he had urged the collective farmers not to work on religious holidays and that, at the beginning of 1937, in the discussion on elections to the village soviets, he had said that religious people should be elected to the soviets, to strengthen the Church. On 10 September 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and on 23 September he was shot and buried in the common grave on the outskirts of Tver.

He is remembered on 23 September, on 11 July (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Pskov, 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.