Nicholas Shumkov

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Shumkov was a priest in the Komi land and was shot on 21 August 1937, after a third arrest.

He was born on 4 November 1886 in the village of Sludka in the Yarensk district of the Vologda province, in the family of the deacon of the church of the Saviour. In 1904 he finished the Vologda seminary. Between 1906 and 1913 he was a reader at the church, a singing teacher at the Sludka parish school and a teacher of religion at the Prokopiev zemstvo school. On 29 September 1913 Bishop Alexis of Veliky Ustyug ordained him deacon for the church of the Dormition in the village of Pomozdino, and soon after 1918 he became a priest.

The first time he was arrested was in 1929, for "non-⁠payment of the land-⁠survey levy", and he was sentenced to four months of forced corrective labour. The second arrest followed in 1931, with a still more absurd charge, "failure to fulfil meat deliveries", but he stayed briefly and was released; after that began his service in the Syktyvdin district of the republic of Komi, first at the church of Saint Elijah, then at the church of the Ascension, in the village of Yb, in the same district. The third and last arrest took place on 14 August 1937: he was charged with "active counter-⁠revolutionary activity, systematic spreading of rumours about the imminent collapse of collective farms and the fall of Soviet power", and it was said that, speaking of the authorities, he called them robbers and spoke of famine and forced labour. He did not admit guilt. On 19 August 1937 the NKVD troika of Komi sentenced him to death, and on 21 August the sentence was carried out. On 6 October 2001 the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church numbered him among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia.

He is remembered on 21 August, on 11 February in the Synaxis of the Komi Saints, and on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, in the new style.