Nicholas Rodimov

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Rodimov was an archpriest at Arkhangelsk and was shot on 10 January 1938, at the age of eighty-⁠one.

His life

He was born in 1856 in the Arkhangelsk province, in the family of the priest Daniil Rodimov, who had ten children, six boys and four girls, of whom five sons chose the priesthood. He finished the Arkhangelsk seminary and was a supervisor at the theological school, where he married Glafira Mikhailovna, daughter of a major of the border guard. In 1880 he was ordained priest and named to the parish of Puya in the Shenkursk district, known for its neglect; there he stayed nine years, renewed the church and its grounds, opened a parish school and himself taught in it. The bishop noticed him and thanked him, then moved him to Shenkursk, where he served at the Holy Trinity women's monastery, taught at the district school and the theological school and worked in the deanery council. Then he was named to Arkhangelsk: teacher of religion at the seminary school, member of the board of the theological school and of the diocesan candle factory, director of a parish school and rector of the Trinity church in Kuznechevo. He wanted his ministry to embrace people of various occupations and situations: he visited hospitals and the orphanage, taught the soldiers of the Arkhangelsk battalion and gave lessons at several vocational schools. In 1908 he received the rank of archpriest, and from 1916 he was confessor of the city clergy.

Persecution

After the October coup, the archpriest openly condemned in church the overthrow and murder of the tsar and spoke to the parishioners about the changes, saying that Soviet power was transient. In 1920 he was arrested by the provincial Cheka, spent a month in prison and was released with a suspended sentence. In the early twenties he spoke against Renovationism. Arkhangelsk was a place of exile for priests repressed by the Soviet authorities, among them many bishops, and in his church he often served with future martyrs. In 1930 the Trinity church was closed and turned into a dormitory. Standing at the gate of the yard, the archpriest watched the icons being taken away to be burned; the shock was great. He had served the church of the Holy Trinity twenty-⁠five years. For a long time, say those close to him, he seemed lost. Soon he was put out with his family from the priest's house too, and the house was torn down. After the closing of the Trinity he moved to a cemetery church. At the end of 1930, at seventy-⁠three, he retired, but did not cease his pastoral service and served until the last arrest, in December 1937, when he was eighty-⁠one. On the sixth day after the arrest the only interrogation took place, in which he was silent. He was asked to admit counter-⁠revolutionary activity, and he answered briefly: "I never and nowhere engaged in any counter-⁠revolutionary activity." On 10 January 1938 he was shot.

He is remembered on 10 January, on 1 November in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Archangelsk Metropolis, and on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, in the new style.