Nikolai Krylov

Holy Hieromartyr Nikolai Krylov, archpriest, was born in the village of Petrovskoye, in the Vereya district of the Moscow province, in the family of a sexton, and died in the night of 11 to 12 December 1941 in the Karlag camp, in the Karaganda region. He was numbered among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia in the year 2000. He is remembered on 28 November (11 December on the new calendar).

Family and first service

He was the son of the sexton Vasily Fyodorovich Krylov and Sofia Tikhonovna. His brother was Bishop Arseny (Krylov). His wife was Alexandra Mikhailovna Kadysheva, the daughter of a psalm-⁠reader from the village of Aleshnya. They had a daughter, Claudia (1901), and a son, Konstantin (1902). He finished the theological school at Zvenigorod and worked as teacher-⁠tutor at the parish school of Saint Basil the Great in Moscow and at the home of the parish guardianship of the same church. From 1900 he was psalm-⁠reader at the Kazan church in the village of Podlipichye and continued to teach. For many years he taught church singing: six years at the Boris and Gleb parish school in Dmitrov and four years at the Mitkovo zemstvo school, Dmitrov district. He also taught Church Slavonic.

On 19 January 1909, after passing the examination for the rank of deacon and teacher of religion, he was moved to the Spaso-⁠Vlakhernsky monastery and appointed deacon-⁠psalm-⁠reader. After five days he was ordained deacon. From 1912 he led congregational singing, introduced by him with the blessing of the diocesan authorities. He received medals and a gold cross with enamel. From 1915 he was teacher of religion at the Novo-⁠Spassky primary school at Dedenevo. In the First World War he cared spiritually for the wounded in the monastery infirmary and in the clergy's infirmary, regularly holding readings and conversations with them. From 1916 he was a member of the parish council for the care of reservists' families. From 1921 he was protodeacon.

Priest and persecution

From June 1925 he was priest at the church of the Saviour of the Spaso-⁠Vlakhernsky monastery, ordained by Bishop Seraphim (Zvezdinsky). He was rector of the church of the Saviour and spiritual father of the sisters of the monastery, closed in 1928, and he continued to guide the elderly nuns after the closing. The inhabitants of the settlement, of the surrounding villages and of distant districts often came to him with the request to pray at the holy relics for healing from sickness, and by his prayer healings occurred. In February 1930 he was dispossessed as a kulak and put out of his house, but the dispossession was then cancelled. From the early 1930s he was archpriest. From 1935, after the closing of the church of the Saviour, he served at the church of "Unexpected Joy" and lived in poverty.

On 14 August 1936 he was arrested. He was accused of performing services in secret at the request of the people, of healing, of taking part in secret tonsures, of spreading the book The Antichrist, of belonging to the True Orthodox Church, of helping the exiled bishops Dimitry (Lyubimov) and Seraphim (Zvezdinsky), of spreading the truth about the persecution of the Church and about the hard life of the exiles, and the inhuman conditions and excessive labour of the prisoners building the Moscow-⁠Volga canal, and that Hitler would crush Soviet power. He did not deny that he had helped the exiles and had directly pressed for the reopening of the church. He rejected all the other charges. He did not name the nuns who lived near the monastery, those who had sent him letters, or those who asked him to pray for their health.

Repose in the camp

On 2 December 1936 the Special Council of the NKVD sentenced him to five years in a labour camp. He was sent to Karlag. In 1942 his wife received from the camp a postcard from Father Nikolai, which began with the words: "My dear Sanechka, your priceless hands" Between the lines, in someone else's hand, it was written: "Your father, Archpriest Nikolai, peacefully reposed in the night of 11 to 12 December 1941. He was robbed by criminals and froze to death." On 27 December 2000, by decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, his name was entered in the synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia.