Paul Kushnikov

Holy Hieromartyr Paul Kushnikov, a priest, was born on 16 December 1880 in the family of a priest of the Saviour-⁠Transfiguration church in Modenskaya, Ustyuzhna district, Novgorod province. He finished the Novgorod seminary in 1905 and was a teacher in parish schools. In 1913 he was ordained deacon and priest and appointed to the church at Belskoe, Ustyuzhna district, where he served five years, to his death.

In the years of war and revolution he cared not only for the souls and health of his parishioners, but for their food: he set up a parish communal shop, which distributed provisions. In 1917 some parishioners wrote a denunciation of him, accusing him of urging disobedience to the new government, but the investigation found him innocent. On 22 February 1918 he was unexpectedly arrested by two delegates of the executive committee in Ustyuzhna, charged with hiding weapons for White guards, though nothing was found in the search. On 23 February, old style, he was led outside the village of Belskoe, beside a marsh, and shot.

His sacrifice was testified to by Metropolitan Arsenius of Novgorod at the session of the Holy Council of Russia on 9 April 1918, and on 20 September 1918, at the last session of the Council, the secretary V. P. Shein (the future Venerable Martyr Sergius) mentioned the priest Paul Kushnikov in his report on the persecution of the Church and the new martyrs. His name was included in the calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church by decision of the Holy Synod of 4 April 2019.

He is commemorated on 8 March (a movable date), on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and on 11 July (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda, in the new style.