Nicholas Tolgsky

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Tolgsky was an archpriest and dean in Moscow and was shot at Chimkent, in Kazakhstan, on 27 August 1937.

He was born on 20 February 1886 in the village of Dorki in the Bronnitsy district of the Moscow province, the youngest of three priest brothers, sons of the archpriest Basil Tolgsky. The eldest brother, the archpriest Sergius, served in Moscow and in 1936 went willingly into exile with his daughter's family; the middle one, Father Alexander, was the well-⁠known rector of the church of Saint Elijah in Obydensky Lane. He attended the Moscow seminary, finishing in 1907, and then the Moscow Theological Academy, where he became candidate in theology in 1911. He received the priesthood after the Academy and was sent to the church of the Exaltation of the Cross in the village of Altufyevo, then to Moscow, to the church of Saint Sergius in Pushkari.

He was a bright figure of the church life of his time. Disregarding the persecution of the authorities, he devoted himself to the enlightenment of people and founded choirs. He was personally known to Holy Patriarch Tikhon, was named dean of the churches of the Sretenka district, ordained archpriest and rewarded with the mitre. In 1922 he was arrested for having taught religion, but was released after two weeks. The second arrest took place on 12 April 1935: the Special Council of the NKVD sentenced him to three years of exile at Chimkent, in the South Kazakhstan region. On 23 June 1937 he was arrested for the third and last time, in exile. Besides the charges brought against all participants in the case (member of a "counter-⁠revolutionary centre including numerous cadres of churchmen, monks, priests", for the "establishment of the Patriarchate and the supremacy of the Church over state power"), the archpriest Nicholas was accused of being "leader of the exiled clergy in the Karakat district, who, on the order of [Bishop] Kobranov, grouped around him and led the counter-⁠revolutionary element in the village of Leninsky, carried on defeatist agitation and wrote a counter-⁠revolutionary novel, seized in the search". At the interrogation he said: "I engaged in no counter-⁠revolutionary activity and have nothing to say on this matter." The troika of the South Kazakhstan region sentenced him to death and he was shot on 27 August 1937 in Lisya Balka at Chimkent; the place of burial is unknown. In the year 2000 the Jubilee Council of Bishops numbered him among the saints.

He is remembered on 27 August, on 5 September (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, on 10 December in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Radonezh, and on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, in the new style.