Nicholas Raevsky

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Raevsky was a priest in the Tver diocese and was shot on 3 November 1937, after he had resisted the closing of churches and the Renovationist schism.

His life

He was born on 2 March 1885 in the city of Rzhev, in the Tver province, in the family of the psalm-⁠reader Basil Savvich Raevsky. His mother died in 1892, and in 1897 his father moved with the children to the village of Bereznikovo and was a reader there, but died in March 1899. Nicholas finished primary school and the theological school in the town, in 1899, and was sent to serve as reader at Bereznikovo, in place of his late father. In 1906 he was moved to the church at Turginovo, and in November he was called into the army, in Warsaw, in the 182nd reserve infantry regiment. In 1910 he returned to Rzhev as reader at the church of the Protection, and a year later moved to Staritsa, as steward of the theological school. In 1913 he was ordained deacon, in 1915 sent to the church at Osulskoye, Rzhev district, where he was deacon fifteen years, until 1930. On 20 January 1930 he was ordained priest for the church in the village of Kokosha, Rzhev district. The persecution grew, churches were closed under various pretexts or taken by the Renovationists with the help of the authorities and then given to the authorities to be closed.

In 1936 he was moved to the church at Baranya Gora, which the authorities were trying to close. To be ready for anything he began to look for another place of service, and in August 1937 the parishioners of Borzyni wrote that they would like to call him. He visited the village and served there, then replied: "Returning from Borzyni and thinking over what I heard, I conclude that the people value the church, love it and would gladly bring benefit; I greatly fear that the parish of Borzyni will be seized by the Renovationists, which is the same as closing the church." On 9 October he sent the archbishop of Tver his petition for transfer.

Arrest and death

But the order for the arrest of the clergy and of believers suspected of sympathy for pre-⁠revolutionary Russia was in force. At the interrogation he said that he had been visited by some inhabitants asking him to serve in their houses, and he had answered that he could not and had shown them how to ask the authorities for permission; that in August people of Vyazmitsy had invited him to Borzyni to see the parish, and that he had not known the place was already taken by another priest. Asked whether he admitted guilt of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation, he answered that he admitted only that in his heart he had resented the authorities for the heavy taxes, which did not exist under the tsar, without saying so to anyone. On the same day the investigator looked for witnesses willing to testify: the accountant of the village cooperative said that the priest, visiting a woman, had said that it was pointless to work in the collective farm since the state would take the whole harvest anyway, and asked her to go round the houses of the church-⁠minded collective farmers and call them to church; for this, at the district, the priest had been fined a hundred roubles. On the strength of such testimonies the indictment was drawn up on 26 October, and on 1 November the NKVD troika decided on execution. Father Nicholas was shot on 3 November 1937. In August 2000 the Jubilee Council of Bishops numbered him among the new martyrs and confessors.

He is remembered on 3 November, 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.