Nicholas Troitsky

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Troitsky was a priest in the Tver province and was shot on 29 November 1937.

He was born on 23 July 1887 in the village of Pokrov in the Tver province, where his father, the archpriest John Troitsky, served. After the seminary he was ordained priest for the church in the village of Pokrov, not far from the town of Udomlya, and served there until the persecution of the end of the twenties and the beginning of the thirties. In 1930 he was arrested for not being able to pay the tax and sentenced to two years in a camp and five years of exile. When he returned from prison to Tver, in 1932, the holy Archbishop Thaddeus blessed him to serve at the church in Vereskunovo, Udomlya district. There he served until the bloody persecution of 1937. On 20 November 1937 the NKVD arrested him and imprisoned him at Bezhetsk. On the same day the investigator interrogated him.

Asked about the baptism of the child of Peter Shelepov and about the conversation with Arseny Shelepov, his brother, he said he did not remember what they had talked about. He was told that he had spoken in an anti-⁠Soviet way, of the inevitability of war and the perishing of the unbelievers, but he answered that his talk had been only an urging to faith in God and that God is long-⁠suffering but the moment will come when He will judge the godless. Of the conversation with the collective farmers, on the feast of the Protection, about the lack of rain, he said: "I said that God begins to punish people for their deeds; see, the water has dried up, the wells have dried, the people may suffer from drought and thirst because of the unbelievers, and then those who have turned from God will repent." He was told that it was an attempt to stir the collective farmers against the authorities, but he denied it; asked whether he had agitated against the candidates for the Supreme Soviet, he answered no and that he had spoken no such words. He did not admit guilt. On 27 November an NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and on 29 November 1937 Father Nicholas Troitsky was shot. In August 2000 the Jubilee Council of Bishops numbered him among the new martyrs and confessors.

He is remembered on 29 November, on 18 July (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tver, on 12 September (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Nizhny Novgorod, and on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, in the new style.