Paul Uspensky

Holy Hieromartyr Paul Uspensky (the second of that name), born on 23 May 1888 in the village of Chernevo near Moscow (today within the city of Krasnogorsk), in the family of the priest Dimitry Ivanovich Uspensky, finished the spiritual school at Perervino in 1904 and the Moscow seminary in 1911. For two years he was a teacher at a church school. On 15 December 1913 he was ordained deacon and on 20 December priest for the Holy Trinity church in the village of Sapronovo. In 1930 he was moved to the Resurrection church in Vasilevskoe, in 1932 he served in the villages of Chashnikovo, Bolshevo and Tsaritsyno, in 1933 at the church of the Archangel Michael in Nekhoroshevo, and in 1936 at the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in Rudnya-⁠Nikitskoe. He then returned to Sapronovo, where his ministry had begun; the church was closed, but the peasants knew him and invited him to their homes for services.

On 19 March 1938 he was arrested and held at Kashira. On-⁠duty witnesses were brought, who signed statements with the charges of counter-⁠revolutionary activity. The priest answered all the questions in the same way: I do not admit guilt. After a week he was interrogated again and answered the same. On 8 April the investigator called him once more, asking how long he had served and how faithful he was to his convictions. In 1957, in the review of the file, it was proved to be falsified: according to witnesses, the head of the district NKVD section told them: Sign quickly, the clergy must be liquidated, say as much as you can.

A long pause followed, because the NKVD investigators had been arrested and there was no one to sign the indictments. Even so, without being called again to interrogation, on 7 June 1938 an NKVD troika sentenced him to death. He was moved to Taganka. He was shot on 4 July 1938 and buried in the common grave at Butovo. He was rehabilitated on 2 November 1957.

He is commemorated on 4 July, on 29 May (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, in the new style.