Nikephoros Litvinov

Holy Hieromartyr Nikephoros Litvinov was a deacon and was shot at the Butovo range, near Moscow, on 19 December 1937.

He was born on 1 June 1892 in the village of Seretino, in the Kursk region, to a peasant family. He finished the village school in 1913 and was taken into the army, where he was a psalm-⁠reader at the regimental church until 1917. He returned to Seretino, kept helping at the church and prepared for ordination, and later became a deacon and served at the church of his village. In 1932 the church was closed and he was sent to the one at Kameneki, which was closed in 1934. Then Father Nikephoros was arrested and sentenced to three years in a labour camp. From 1934 to 1937 he was held in an NKVD camp in the Far East, in the town of Svobodny.

Released in April 1937, he began to serve at the church of Saint Nicholas in the village of Cherlenkovo, in the Shakhovskoy district of the Moscow region. He served only a short time: on 27 November 1937 he was arrested again and charged with counter-⁠revolutionary agitation. He did not admit guilt. On 3 December 1937 an NKVD troika for the Moscow region sentenced him to death, and on 19 December he was shot at Butovo.

He is remembered on 20 December, 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.