Nicholas Zhitov

Holy Hieromartyr Nicholas Zhitov was an archpriest in the Ryazan province and was shot at Butovo on 25 September 1937.

He was born in 1888 in the village of Pyzhovo in the Zaraysk district of the Ryazan province, in the family of the psalm-⁠reader Jacob Zhitov. After the theological school he served from 1905 as reader at the church of the Resurrection in his native village. In 1915 he was ordained deacon for the church of Saint George in Zaraysk, in 1917 moved to the cemetery church in Zaraysk, and in 1920 ordained priest for the church of the Resurrection at Pyzhovo. In 1930 he was moved to the church of Saint Nicholas in the village of Aponitishchi, in 1931 to the Kazan church in Slemskiye Borki, Lukhovitsy district, and in 1934 again to the church of Saint Nicholas in Aponitishchi. In 1930 he received the pectoral cross, and in 1936 he was raised to archpriest. In August 1937 the cruellest persecution began, and on 4 September he was arrested.

Witnesses were called to the NKVD: the chairman of the collective farm and a married couple whom Father Nicholas sometimes visited; asked about the priest, they told all they knew, that he had grown up in a poor peasant setting and in the time of persecution had lost his last property, but was not troubled, because he was used to any labour. First of all he was a conscientious pastor, but he did not shun any peasant work, often earning his living by putting glass into the peasants' houses and making tubs. While the witnesses spoke, the investigator wrote something on a sheet and, when they had finished, gave them the record to sign. The trust of some and the fear of others toward the NKVD were so great that, without asking that it be read and without reading it themselves, they signed what the investigator had written about the priest's counter-⁠revolutionary and anti-⁠Soviet activity. On 5 September, interrogated, Father Nicholas denied having carried on counter-⁠revolutionary activity and having slandered the Soviet press. Having enough false testimonies signed, the investigator did not press for confessions and on 8 September drew up the indictment. On 22 September an NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and on 25 September 1937 the archpriest Nicholas Zhitov was shot and buried in an unknown common grave on the Butovo range.

He is remembered on 25 September, on 29 May (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, and on 5 September (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, in the new style.