Nikolai Leisman

Holy Hieromartyr Nikolai Leisman was born on 13 June 1902 in Tallinn, the son of a sacristan and teacher, Aleksei Leisman; his uncle was Bishop Nikolai of Pechory. He attended the church school and the seminary in Riga. In 1918-1919 he fought as a volunteer in Estonia's war of independence. He was ordained deacon on 9 April 1933 and priest on 14 April by Metropolitan Alexander in Tallinn.

He served at Kilingi from 1933 to 1935, then from 1935 at the parishes of Saint Basil the Great in Seli-⁠Tõstamaa and Saint Arsenius in Kastna. On 14 June 1941 he was arrested by the NKVD in the village of Vihakse on false accusations; his wife Marta and his son Jüri were taken too. He died on 19 May 1943 in the Sevurallag camp in the Sverdlovsk region.

The Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate decided on 22 February 2012, on the proposal of the Orthodox Church of Estonia, to canonize eleven clergy and laity who suffered for the faith in the first years of the Soviet occupation: five priests, two deacons, a presbytera and three laypeople. The decision was read on 17 May 2012 in the Transfiguration Cathedral in Tallinn. They are remembered on 14 June, in memory of the deportations of 1941. The sources keep rather few details about the fate of each: some were executed, others died in prison or in camps.