Peter Rozhdestvin

Holy Hieromartyr Peter Rozhdestvin, an archpriest, was born on 25 June 1879 in the village of Dmitrievsky Pogost in the Yegoryevsk district of Ryazan province, in the family of the psalmist Alexei Mikhailovich and Alexandra Alexeevna Rozhdestvin. In 1899 he finished the Ryazan seminary and was sent to teach at a church school. Resolved to serve the Holy Church as a priest, he sought a wife ready to bear with him the cross of service; he married Lyudmila, daughter of Archpriest Dmitry Semyonovich Lebedev, who served in his village. A graduate of the diocesan school, she taught at the same school. After ordination Father Peter was sent to the church of Vyshkovo, Novozybkov district, Chernigov province, because in his native parts there were no places for priests. When a place fell vacant at the Holy Trinity church of the village of Lanino, Yegoryevsk district, eight versts from Dmitrievsky Pogost, his parents proposed that he serve there.

Ministry at Lanino

The church was small, of wood, built by the zeal of the faithful of six villages. Later they built a two-⁠storey school, quarters for teachers and a watchman's hut. Before the First World War Lanino had become a prosperous village, and the parishioners prepared to build a brick church, for which they had set up a brickworks; the walls rose quickly, but the war and the godless revolution stopped the work. Father Peter, raised in a poor psalmist's family, used to peasant labour, never hired workers, but lived by the rule of the peasant community, helping one another in the great works. He rose before dawn, like all the peasants, and prayed before work. But he never forgot that he was first of all a shepherd of God: at any hour of day and night, in any weather, he left every task and went to those who called him for services. He was content with what was given him and often helped the needy. He served with great solemnity, and on feasts two choirs always sang. At his son's first confession he told him: Be always honest and truthful, do good to people, respect your elders, love the homeland and the people where you were born, do not forget God. In 1921, when an epidemic of typhus broke out at Lanino, he was not afraid, but went to the families with sick, to confess, anoint and give communion.

Arrests and the camp

He received a pectoral cross in 1924, the rank of archpriest in 1926, a cross with decorations in 1936. He was first arrested in 1930, for non-⁠delivery of the farm produce required, and sentenced to five years of exile, but, because the law did not provide such a penalty for that offence, the court acquitted him and set him free. The second time he was arrested on 30 November 1937, in the time of mass persecution, and held at Taganka. Against him testified a collective farmer, who said that he had taken part in spreading counter-⁠revolutionary leaflets, and the priest of the neighbouring village, Peter Sukhanov, who said that Father Peter spoke discontentedly of the policy of the authorities, complained of taxes and drew out services, which kept collective farmers from work. At the interrogation of 1 December, Father Peter denied: I never carried on agitation. I took no part in leaflets. I did not draw out services.

On 5 December 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years in a camp and he was sent to the Mariinsk camp, a section of Siblag, where he arrived on 31 December 1937. In letters to his wife he asked for what he needed and said how much her letters meant to him, which he read several times and knew by heart. Archpriest Peter Rozhdestvin died on 27 May 1939 in the Baim section of Siblag and was buried in an unknown camp grave.

He is commemorated on 27 May, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, on 29 August (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kuzbass and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, in the new style.