Nicholas Vinogradov

Holy Confessor Nicholas Vinogradov was an archpriest in the village of Malakhovo, in the Yaroslavl province, and fell asleep in the Lord on 1 December 1948, after a life of confession.

On 25 July 1908, half a year before his own death, the Holy Righteous John of Kronstadt wrote in pencil in his diary: "The priest Nicholas Vasilievich Vinogradov, Yaroslavl province, Romanov district, village of Malakhovo." The reason for the note remains unknown; it is only known that in those days Father John was travelling through the Yaroslavl diocese. It seems that a saint known throughout Russia, near the end of his course in Christ, could not fail to notice another, to whom it was not given to gain such fame, but who would be made holy by the struggle of confessing the faith of Christ.

Nicholas Vasilievich Vinogradov was born in 1870 in the very village in which, in 1908, the holy pastor of all Russia found him as a priest. In his native village of Malakhovo he was arrested in 1929, at fifty-⁠nine. On 1 December the conviction followed: three years in a labour camp. The man whom Father John had noted held firmly to his faith. After many years of confession, the archpriest Nicholas Vinogradov fell asleep in the Lord on 1 December 1948, on the anniversary of his first conviction.

He is remembered on 1 December, on 5 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl, and on 7 February (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, in the new style.