Peter Skipetrov

Holy Hieromartyr Peter Skipetrov (Pyotr Ivanovich Skipetrov) was an archpriest in Petrograd, born on 4 July 1863 in the village of Stanki, in the Vyazniki district of the Vladimir province, into a priest's family, and killed in 1918. He was gravely wounded on 18 January 1918 in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, in a conflict with Red Guards, and died on the evening of 20 January, by the old calendar. He was numbered among the saints of the Russian Church in 2001. Our calendar remembers him on 19 January.

Family and studies

He was the son of a priest. His brother, Mikhail Ivanovich Skipetrov, was a privy councillor, a member of the council of State Control. His wife, Antonina Nikolaevna, née Zaozerskaya, was the daughter of a subdeacon of Saint Isaac's cathedral. In the family of Archpriest Peter Skipetrov there were thirteen children. He graduated from the theological school at Shuya. In 1883 and 1884 he was psalm-⁠reader at the church of Saint George in Vladimir. In 1884 he graduated from the Vladimir seminary. In 1890 he graduated from the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy, with the title of candidate in theology, with a work on the moral outlook of Innocent, archbishop of Kherson and Tauris.

Service in Petersburg

On 18 February 1884 he was appointed deacon to a subdeacon's place at Saint Isaac's cathedral. On 14 September 1892 he became priest of the church of the children's home of Prince Oldenburg. From 1898 he was priest of the newly built Church of Sorrows, raised on the site where, in 1888, the wonderworking icon "Joy of All Who Sorrow" with the kopecks appeared, and between 1912 and 1918 he was its rector. Between 1894 and 1900 he was teacher of religion at the home of the grand duchess Alexandra Nikolaevna, and between 1900 and 1917 at the Gromov children's home. He received in 1916 the order of Saint Vladimir, fourth class.

Death

Between 13 and 21 January 1918, by the old calendar, on the order of the commissar for state charity, Alexandra Kollontai, sailors and Red Guards tried to occupy the premises of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, to house invalids there, which caused a conflict with the clergy and the people of the Church. On 18 January Skipetrov was summoned by Metropolitan Benjamin to the Lavra the next day, at three o'clock. On the way, at the entrance to the monastery from the side of the Theological Academy, they were told that the Lavra was uneasy, but Peter and another priest of his church went to the Trinity cathedral, then to the metropolitan's quarters. Entering the corridor of the main entrance, the archpriests saw several Red Guards arguing with some women and threatening them with weapons. Father Peter admonished the armed men, a revolver shot was heard, and the priest was wounded in the face. Father Peter's son, Dr P. P. Skipetrov, was called by telephone and found his father in a grave state: the bullet had passed through the lower jaw and stopped in the region of the neck. Urgent medical help brought him briefly to consciousness. They carried him in their arms to the infirmary of the Union of Cities No. 246, at 135 Nevsky Prospect, where he died on the evening of 20 January.

The solemn funeral service was performed by Metropolitan Benjamin (Kazansky) of Petrograd, with the bishops Procopius (Titov) and Artemy (Ilyinsky). He was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra (now the Necropolis of Masters of Art). Professor Alexander Bronzov wrote of him that a less sensitive, more lukewarm man might have kept silent and so saved his life, but Father Peter was not so, a most energetic pastor, with his bold Christian soul and his "Elijah-⁠like" zeal.

Remembrance

By decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 26 December 2001 his name was entered in the synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church. On 4 June 2015 a memorial plaque by the sculptor Evelina Solovyova was unveiled in the metropolitan's building of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, on the place of the mortal wounding of the hieromartyr Peter, and was blessed by Bishop Nazary (Lavrinenko) of Kronstadt. In 2018 Metropolitan Barsanuphius of Saint Petersburg and Ladoga consecrated the house church of the hieromartyr Peter Skipetrov at Polyustrovo.