Nikolay Ornatsky

Holy New Martyr Nicholas Ornatsky was a military doctor who suffered in October 1918 at Petrograd, around 30 October, together with his father and his brother. He was born on 16 May 1886 in Saint Petersburg and was a junior doctor of the 199th Kronstadt Infantry Regiment. He was numbered among the saints of the Russian Church in 2000.

His father, Philosopher Nikolayevich Ornatsky, was an archpriest and rector of the Kazan Cathedral in Saint Petersburg. His mother, Elena, born Zaozerskaya, was the daughter of a former subdeacon of Metropolitan Isidore. Nicholas was the eldest of ten children. His brother, Boris Philosopherovich, was shot together with his father and Nicholas in October 1918 and is numbered among the holy hieromartyrs. In 1913 he married Seraphima, daughter of Archpriest John Uspensky, priest of the Life Guards Finland Regiment. They had two daughters, Irina (born 1917) and Elena.

After his first schooling at the Tenth Saint Petersburg Gymnasium (1906), he graduated in 1910 from the Imperial Military Medical Academy with the title of physician. During his studies he joined the Society for the Spread of Religious and Moral Enlightenment, headed by his father, and took an active part in founding a church folk choir at the church of Saint Seraphim of Sarov at Grafskaya station. In 1911 he was appointed junior doctor in the 197th Lesnoy Infantry Regiment and was seconded to the Sveaborg infirmary for scientific and practical training. From 1911 to 1914 he served as a doctor in the 199th Kronstadt Infantry Regiment. From 1914 he took part in the war in the 6th Motor Company of the 9th Army and was awarded three orders. After the end of the war he returned home, began private medical practice and sang in the church choir.

He was arrested in August 1918 together with his father and brother. The parishioners demanded the priest's release, and the authorities answered by moving him with his sons from Petrograd to Kronstadt. Archpriest Philosopher Ornatsky and his sons were shot, it is believed, around 30 October 1918. On the way, the father read aloud the prayers for the departure of the soul over the condemned. According to some sources the execution took place at Kronstadt, according to others near the Gulf of Finland, between Ligovo and Oranienbaum. The bodies of those shot were, it seems, thrown into the gulf.

In August 2000 Archpriest Philosopher Ornatsky and his sons Nicholas and Boris were numbered among the saints for veneration throughout the Church by the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Church.