Nicholas Troitsky

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Troitsky was an archpriest in Chuvashia and died in the Bamlag camp on 10 March 1945, after firmly resisting false accusations.

He was born in 1895 in the village of Vypolzovo in the Kurmysh district of the Simbirsk province (today the Poretsk district of Chuvashia), in the family of the deacon Dimitri Troitsky. In 1918 he finished the Simbirsk seminary in the first category and was for a time a village teacher. In 1920 he was ordained priest for the village of Sabayevo (now in Mordovia). For blameless service he received in 1920 the hip-⁠shield, in 1922 the skufia, in 1924 the kamilavka, and in 1928 the pectoral cross. In January 1929 he was convicted, for non-⁠payment of taxes, and served a sentence for a time. After release, from 1930, he served in the village of Semyonovskoye, Poretsk district, then, from 1933, in the village of Maloye Churashevo, Yadrin district. In 1935 he was raised to archpriest. Then the authorities wished to send him to public works, and he wrote to the village soviet, asking for clarification whether the decision of 1930, forbidding the sending of ministers of religion to logging, roadwork and other labour, was still in force. At the request of the church council the ban on bells was lifted. He often asked the soviet for permission to go through the village with holy water at Theophany and on other feasts.

On 29 November 1937 his home was searched and he was arrested. He was held at Yadrin and interrogated on 30 November, 13 December 1937 and 14 January 1938, and at all the interrogations he did not admit guilt. On 13 December the investigator asked whether he admitted guilt of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation; he answered: "I do not admit guilt; among the people I have never carried on counter-⁠revolutionary agitation." Then he repeated that he had not agitated against the authorities since the day of the revolution and asked for confrontations, if the accusation rested on testimonies. On 12 and 13 January confrontations were held with two false witnesses, and he said: "I do not confirm and I consider the testimonies false; I never carried on agitation. It is pure lies on the part of the witnesses." The inquiry ended on 18 January, the indictment was drawn up on 1 February. Only on 5 May 1938 was the closed session of the special collegium of the Supreme Court of Chuvashia held, at Yadrin, postponed for lack of witnesses, and on 6 May it gave the sentence: ten years' deprivation of freedom. The appeal was rejected.

He was sent to the labour colony at Alatyr, with over four thousand prisoners, where, though it was not part of the gulag system, people died of lack of food and of disease, without medicines. There other martyrs had died too, among them the Holy Hieromartyr Dimitri (Voskresensky) on 22 May 1938, the Venerable Martyr Ignatius (Lebedev) on 11 September 1938, the Venerable Martyr Tamara (Satsi) on 1 May 1941 and the Holy Hieromartyr Michael (Samsonov) on 28 January 1942. The believing prisoners received Communion with the Holy Gifts sent in parcels or brought by relatives, confessed and prayed. After almost three years at Alatyr, in March 1941, Father Nicholas was sent, at the gulag's order, to the Baikal-⁠Amur camp. He died in the Svobodny section of the Bamlag on 10 March 1945 and was buried in an unknown grave.

He is remembered on 10 March (a movable day), on 11 July (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Chuvash Metropolis, and on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, in the new style.