Paul Malinovsky

Holy Hieromartyr Paul Malinovsky, a priest, was born on 15 October 1874 in the family of the deacon of the Holy Trinity church in the village of Shelota, in Vologda province. His father died before he was a year old, and his mother, Alexandra Nikolaevna, raised three sons alone. At fourteen he entered the Vologda seminary, which he finished in 1894, and was appointed supervisor at the spiritual school in Ust-⁠Sysolsk. On 28 January 1898 Bishop Gabriel of Veliky Ustyug ordained him priest for the Annunciation church in Ust-⁠Vym, and he was head and religion teacher of the church school there. He was dean of the second district of the Yarensk district between 1905 and 1917 and received several distinctions: the hip-⁠cloth, the skufia, the kamilavka. He was steady, calm, moderately strict, and raised thirteen children. It is said that he had a velvety voice and was tall and handsome.

After 1918 he lived in Ust-⁠Vym. In 1918 he was levied a contribution of 500 roubles, and in 1921 he was called to account for not handing over church valuables. Until 1933 he was rector of the Annunciation church, and as dean led the parishes that remained under Patriarch Tikhon. After its closing he served at the church of the Kazan Icon at Yb. When in June 1935 that too was closed, he had to live from farming, but he remained faithful to his pastoral care: he buried the dead in secret, baptized children and performed the Mysteries. He said openly that the destruction of the Orthodox faith was harmful to Russia, spoke with hostility of collective farm activists and of collectivization, and hid dispossessed kulaks. In 1931-1932 he was on the OGPU register as an anti-⁠Soviet element, for allegedly gathering monastics around him; in 1936 he was called to account but acquitted.

He was arrested on 6 August 1937, together with the priest Nikolai Kirillov, and held at Syktyvkar. He was accused of having systematically carried on counter-⁠revolutionary activity for the opening of the church in Kazansky Yb. On 23 August 1937 the NKVD troika of the Komi Republic sentenced him to death under article 58.10. According to the page's summary, he was shot on 25 August 1937 at Syktyvkar; the full text gives the date of 12 September 1937, the day on which he is commemorated.

He was glorified by the Council of Bishops of 13-16 August 2000, and the Holy Synod decided to number him among the saints on 27 December 2001. He is commemorated on 12 September, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and on 11 February in the Synaxis of the Saints of Komi, in the new style.