Nicholas Sokolov

Saint Nicholas Sokolov, hieromartyr, was an archpriest of the Russian Church, born in 1877 in the Moscow governorate and shot at the Butovo firing range in 1937. He is commemorated on 18 October by the old calendar, which is 31 October by the new, the day of his martyric death.

He was born in the village of Andreevskoe, Ruza district, in the family of a sacristan. From 1892 to 1898 he studied at the Moscow seminary. He was then appointed teacher at the parish school in the village of Krymskoe, Vereya district, where in the church of the Transfiguration he was ordained priest on 2 September 1899 by Bishop Nestor of Dmitrov. He was made head of the parish school and teacher of the Law of God at the zemstvo school of the same village. From 1902 to 1909 he taught the Law of God at the Yakshino zemstvo school, then at the school in Naro-⁠Osanovo. In 1911 he was elected to the board of the theological school of Zvenigorod.

In 1924 he was raised to the rank of archpriest, in 1931 he received the mitre, and in the 1930s he was dean over the churches of the Vereya and Mozhaisk districts. In 1931 he was arrested for the first time, for a month. He was arrested a second time on 11 October 1937, held first in the prison of Mozhaisk, then in Taganka in Moscow. On 28 October he was sentenced by the NKVD troika for "counter-⁠revolutionary anti-⁠Soviet agitation" and on 31 October he was shot at the Butovo firing range.

He was numbered among the new martyrs of Russia by decision of the Holy Synod and is commemorated on the day of his martyric death, in the Synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia and in the Synaxis of the new martyrs of Butovo.