Peter Tsarapkin

Holy Martyr Peter Tsarapkin (Pyotr Sergeevich Tsarapkin) was born on 10 December 1883 in the village of Boboshino in Moscow province, in the family of the cobbler Sergei Tsarapkin. He finished the church school, then, moving to Moscow, learned the trade of retoucher and worked in photographic studios. But above all he gave all his free time to church singing: he sang in the choir of the Danilov Monastery and in many churches of Moscow. After the revolution of 1917 he worked at the Iskra factory, remaining a regent and organizer of choirs in Moscow churches. In 1933 the authorities judged him a socially dangerous element for belonging to the Church and sent him away from Moscow. From then on he was a psalmist in churches of the Moscow region. In March 1937 the Patriarchate sent him as psalmist to the church of the Great Martyr Paraskeva in the village of Tugoles.

In 1937 the whole clergy of the church was arrested: the archpriests George Kolokolov and Nazarius Gribkov, together with the psalmist Peter. The secretary of the village council signed a statement suggested by the investigator, saying that there was a counter-⁠revolutionary group of churchmen there, that they drew out the services all day to hinder the harvest, and that the psalmist Tsarapkin told the peasants that those who write in the constitution that anyone can elect and be elected will never allow it. On 27 November 1937 Peter Tsarapkin was arrested and held in Butyrka in Moscow. At the interrogations he did not admit guilt.

On 5 December 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced the archpriests George and Nazarius to death, and the psalmist Peter to ten years in a camp, where he ended his life. Father George was shot on 9 December, and Father Nazarius on 11 December 1937, at Butovo. They were glorified by the Jubilee Council of Bishops in 2000.

Saint Peter is commemorated on 9 December, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, in the new style.