Nikodim Krotkov

Holy Hieromartyr Nikodim Krotkov, Archbishop of Kostroma and Galich, was a Russian bishop who lived from 1868 to 1938. For a time he was vicar bishop of Akkerman in the diocese of Kishinev, and later served in Kyiv, in Crimea and in Kostroma.

The Church honours him as a confessor of the faith during the Soviet persecution. He passed through prisons, exile and camps, and died in the prison of Yaroslavl. He is numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

Early life and parish ministry

Nikolai Vasilyevich Krotkov was born on 29 November 1868 in the village of Pogreshino, Nerekhta district, Kostroma province (now in Ivanovo region). His father was a deacon there (other sources say a priest).

He finished the Kostroma theological school in 1883 and the Kostroma seminary in 1889. He then taught at the parish school in the village of Olesh, Galich district.

In 1890 he married Apollinaria Andreyevna Uspenskaya. From 25 February of that year he served as priest of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in the village of Tezino, Kineshma district, and taught religion at the village school.

In his church he introduced spiritual readings with instruction for the people, usually preceded by an akathist. The Romanian source adds that he was gifted in music.

Monk and teacher

A few years later his daughter and then his wife died. Left alone, he entered the Kyiv Theological Academy (in 1892 according to some sources, in 1896 according to others).

On 13 August 1899, in his fourth year of study, he was tonsured a monk with the name Nikodim, in honour of the righteous Nicodemus. He was ordained hierodeacon and hieromonk, and in 1900 he completed the academy as Candidate of Theology.

Years of service in church schools followed. From 1900 he was superintendent of the Vladikavkaz theological school, and in 1902 he became acting inspector of the Kutaisi seminary with the rank of hegumen.

On 8 January 1903 he was raised to archimandrite and appointed rector of the missionary seminary at Ardon in Ossetia, where he set up a chapel in the school at his own expense. From 1905 he was rector of the Pskov Theological Seminary and chairman of the diocesan school council.

Bishop of Akkerman and of Chyhyryn

On 11 November 1907 he was consecrated Bishop of Akkerman, vicar of the diocese of Kishinev. The consecration was performed by Bishop Vladimir of Kishinev, the former Bishop Arkady of Akkerman, Bishop Sergius of Novomirgorod and Bishop Innocent of Kanev.

On 16 November 1911 he was transferred to be Bishop of Chyhyryn, vicar of the diocese of Kyiv, and abbot of the Saint Michael's Golden-⁠Domed Monastery. He was also deputy chairman of the Kyiv branch of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society.

From 1914 he led the Brotherhood of Saint Vladimir, and from 1915 the committee of the Kyiv clergy for the care of refugees. In May 1916 he travelled to the South-⁠Western Front with gifts for the soldiers. He was awarded the orders of Saint Anna and Saint Vladimir.

Revolutionary years in Kyiv

Bishop Nikodim held conservative views. In February 1917, together with other Kyiv clergy, he asked the Tsar to dissolve the State Duma. After the February Revolution he was sent away to Saratov, but at the insistence of clergy and laity in Kyiv he was returned to his post three months later.

In 1917 he initiated the Council of United Parishes and the Brotherhood of Parish Councils. He was the closest helper of Metropolitan Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky) of Kyiv and opposed the movement for the autocephaly of the Church in Ukraine.

After Metropolitan Vladimir was murdered in January 1918, Nikodim governed the diocese of Kyiv until May. On 29 April 1918 he anointed Pavlo Skoropadsky as Hetman of Ukraine in Saint Sophia Cathedral, and then served a service of intercession on the square outside.

He supported the election of Antony (Khrapovitsky), also an opponent of autocephaly, as Metropolitan of Kyiv. In 1918 he took part, as deputy for Metropolitan Antony, in the third session of the Local Council of the Russian Church.

Late in life he summed up his stance during the civil war: he had stood for one undivided Church and homeland, whatever power might rule it.

Captivity and refuge

In 1918 he was arrested by the authorities of the Directorate of the Ukrainian People's Republic and spent nine months in captivity, first in Galicia and then in Poland. He shared this captivity with Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky) and Archbishop Evlogy (Georgievsky).

In August 1919 he returned to Kyiv, and in December he moved to Crimea. From 1920 he headed the committee for refugee clergy under the Provisional Higher Church Administration in South Russia. On 31 August 1920 he was given charge of the liberated parts of the dioceses of Kuban and the Black Sea.

Archbishop in Crimea

In September 1921 Archbishop Dimitry (Abashidze) of Crimea retired. By decree of Holy Patriarch Tikhon of 23 August 1921, Nikodim was given charge of the diocese of Taurida and raised to the rank of Archbishop of Simferopol and Taurida.

The Romanian source notes that during the retreats of the White Army he chose to remain with his flock. In 1922 he was arrested for resisting the confiscation of church valuables and for holding gatherings deemed illegal. He was sentenced to eight years in strict isolation and held in the prison of Nizhny Novgorod.

He fell ill with typhus and in 1923 was freed under an amnesty. He moved to Moscow, hoping to return to Crimea. He was appointed a member of the Holy Synod, served several times with Patriarch Tikhon at the Donskoy Monastery, and kept up a correspondence with his Crimean flock.

In November 1923 the secret police in Simferopol asked Moscow to prevent his return. The reason they gave was that his presence would weaken the state-⁠backed Renovationist movement in Crimea.

Exile

On 14 January 1924 he was arrested again and exiled for two years to Turkestan, at Krasnovodsk. Released in 1926, he served in Moscow at the Church of the Life-⁠Giving Trinity in Kapelki.

He was soon arrested yet again and exiled for three years to Turkestan, first to Kungrad, then to Kzyl-⁠Orda and Turtkul. After his release in 1929 he was forbidden to live in large cities or in Ukraine.

He settled in Vichuga, in the former village of Tezino, where he had begun his priestly ministry nearly forty years before.

Archbishop of Kostroma

On 10 July 1932 (other sources say 10 June) he was appointed Archbishop of Kostroma and Galich. In November of that year he received the right to wear a cross on his klobuk.

He gathered around him clergy who had passed through prison and exile and had remained faithful to Orthodoxy. He helped priests returning from exile to find rural parishes and set up a mutual aid fund, run by Archpriest Pavel Ostrogsky.

At his invitation Bishop Makary (Karmazin) and Professor N. I. Serebryansky, whom he knew from the Pskov seminary, came to Kostroma in November 1933. The story that he rescued the wonderworking Feodorovskaya Icon of the Mother of God after the cathedral was blown up is unreliable, since the icon was then held by the Renovationists.

Last arrest and martyric death

On the night of 4 December 1936 he was arrested on a denunciation by his own secretary and sentenced to five years of exile in the Krasnoyarsk region. Because of his poor health he was kept in prison, where a new charge was brought against him of preparing an uprising against Soviet rule.

The investigators also recorded a confession of espionage for Romania and Poland in his name. Worn down by interrogation and illness, Archbishop Nikodim reposed on 21 August 1938 in the prison hospital at Yaroslavl.

Glorification and veneration

In 1995 he was glorified as a locally venerated saint in the diocese of Kostroma, and he is commemorated in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kostroma. In August 2000 the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church numbered him among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia for veneration throughout the Church.

His image is painted in the Church of the Resurrection in Vichuga. Holy Hieromartyr Nikodim is commemorated on 8 August in the Julian calendar, that is 21 August, the day of his repose.