Pelagia Balakireva

Holy Martyr Pelagia Balakireva was born on 8 October 1901 in the village of Spirino in the Egoryevsk district of Ryazan province, in the family of the peasant Nikita Balakirev. She finished the village school and lived a long time with her father, helping him with the farm. In 1927 she moved to the village of Sharapovo in the Egoryevsk district, where she became watchwoman at the Holy Trinity church of the village. There she helped the rector of the church, Archpriest Nikolai Speransky, and in time was elected warden of the church.

On 18 November 1937 she was arrested together with the rector and other parishioners of the church and held at Taganka in Moscow. The record of the interrogation with testimony against her was signed by the secretary of the village council, who knew well that he was signing false testimony, but wished to be rid of the priest and the active parishioners and to close the church. The day after her arrest she was interrogated. She admitted that she had gathered signatures on a complaint against the council, which had refused the building of a church watchman's hut on collective-⁠farm land, and that services ended at twelve o'clock, on feast days or when services were held on request, which disturbed work on the collective farm. Asked whether she admitted guilt of anti-⁠Soviet agitation, she answered on the first day: Yes, I admit guilt. The next day, when asked again, she understood that she was being drawn into false testimony against herself and said: I stand by my statements, but I carried on no anti-⁠Soviet agitation and I do not admit guilt.

On 27 November 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced her to eight years in a camp. In 1940 all those condemned in this case wrote complaints, the witnesses were questioned again and some no longer confirmed their statements, but the sentence was held lawful because the accused belonged to the Church. Pelagia Balakireva died on 30 June 1943 in a camp in the Vologda region and was buried in an unknown place.

She is commemorated on 30 June, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, on 11 July (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, in the new style.