Peter Bogorodsky

Holy Hieromartyr Peter Bogorodsky, a priest, was born in 1878 in the village of Ilyinskoe-⁠na-⁠Yugu, in the family of a deacon. In 1885 he finished the spiritual school and the singing school in Yaroslavl. Between 1896 and 1903 he was a psalmist in the village of Staro-⁠Petrovskoe, then at the Holy Trinity cathedral in Poshekhonye, and from 1906 for ten years he was a teacher in village schools. From 1916 to 1918 he was a clerk, and in 1918 he returned to church service as a psalmist at the Dormition cemetery church in Poshekhonye, where he served until 1926. In 1926 he was ordained priest for the convent at Sokhot and, after its closure, was moved to the village of Fedorinskoe.

On 31 January 1931 he was sentenced under article 58-10 to exile in the North of Russia. Life in exile was very hard, with hunger, often with grass for food, and typhus of which many died. The priest survived and, free, helped the clergy remaining there materially and supported them spiritually, among others Bishop Stefan Vinogradov. In 1933, returning from exile, he walked five hundred kilometres on foot and settled in Poshekhonye-⁠Volodarsk. He helped believers find their way in the Renovationist movement and free the Dormition cemetery church from the Renovationists. He served in the village of Davydovskoe, then at the Dormition church in Poshekhonye, supported the Tikhonite communities of the district, never refused to perform the services requested, and baptized children from one to thirteen years old. All this was held against him.

On 11 November 1936 he was arrested and charged with organizing a counter-⁠revolutionary group of churchmen, spreading terrorist moods, holding illegal gatherings, opposing the removal of bells, helping exiled clergy and delivering anti-⁠Soviet sermons. He denied it categorically. On 15 August 1937 he was sentenced to eight years in a camp and sent to Sevvostlag, in the Far East, in Nagaevo bay near Magadan. He died in the camp on 6 November 1938.

He was canonized on 20 August 2000 by the Council of Bishops, at the proposal of the Yaroslavl diocese. He is commemorated on 24 October, old style, that is 6 November, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and on 5 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl. Each year the Divine Liturgy is served on the day of his commemoration at the Dormition church in Poshekhonye.