Philip Grigoryev

Holy Hieromartyr Philip Grigoryev, a priest, died of typhus in prison on 17 January 1933, together with the archpriests Alexander Skalsky and Stephen Ponomarev, after they had been arrested by the OGPU. The three served in the city of Verny, today Almaty.

Father Alexander

Alexander Skalsky was born in 1867 in the Volhynia province, in the family of the priest Philemon Skalsky. In 1886 he was appointed psalm reader at the Church of the Holy Cross in Kamenets-⁠Podolsk, and in 1891 Bishop Neophytus of Turkestan received him into the diocese of Turkestan and appointed him psalm reader in the Cossack settlement of Zaitsevskaya and teacher of religion at the parish school. On 8 August 1893 he was ordained deacon and served at the church of Alexander Nevsky in Margelan, then on 21 February 1899 he was ordained priest, and in 1900 he became rector of the Alexander-⁠Mariinsky church at the orphanage in Verny, where he planted a park with the children. In 1907 he was appointed rector of the church of Saint Nicholas at Kuchugury in Verny, where he served until his arrest, raised to the rank of archpriest and rewarded with many distinctions. His wife had left him, they had no children, and he lived alone, giving all his free time to the sick and the needy. He served solemnly and festively, his voice heard in the farthest corner of the church, saying that serving at the Holy Altar is serving God and must be done so that the very air rings.

Father Stephen

Stephen Konstantinovich Ponomarev was born on 14 December 1880 in Verny. In 1895 he finished the parish school, in 1904 he was appointed psalm reader in the village of Mikhailovskoe, today Turgen, and teacher of singing at the parish school. He married the maiden Praskovya and, after the wedding, told her to live together as brother and sister. From then on they lived as monastics. In 1909 he was ordained deacon, then priest. From 1914 to 1917 he was priest in a field military hospital at the front; in the trenches he fell gravely ill and barely survived, and from then on he suffered great headaches, especially in winter, when the metal liturgical vessels were covered with frost. Then he served at the church of Saint Nicholas in Verny, raised to the rank of archpriest. He served daily, lived like a strict monk, and his services were quiet, unhurried and full of reverence. Seeing that Father Alexander found it hard to live alone, he urged him to move in with them, and Matushka Praskovya gladly agreed; they lived in the same house, in plain rooms.

In 1923 the see of Semirechye was taken by Bishop Nicholas Fedotov, who passed in the same year to the Renovationist schism, and in Semirechye nearly everyone became Renovationist. In 1927 Father Alexander began to lean toward the Renovationists and said that he felt great turmoil. Father Stephen told him that he himself would not go to the Renovationists and would serve in the old order, but that he would not let him go either. The Orthodox of the city grieved and wept. Then the women gathered in the church chose the boldest of them, a tall old woman, Luchagina, who, before Father Alexander, told him that he had no right to abandon his flock, threatening to strike him with her stick. Father Alexander, astonished, wept and went into the altar, saying that the Lord had enlightened his soul and mind through that old woman. Father Stephen barred him from serving until repentance, and on the next feast Father Alexander repented before the clergy and the flock and served again with him.

Father Philip and the end

By 1929 the Ascension cathedral had been given to the history museum, and the Renovationists moved to the Trinity church. The church of Saint Nicholas remained the only Orthodox church, and Archpriest Philip Grigoryev, who had served in the Trinity church and had not wished to stay with the Renovationists, came to serve there. He was born on 6 November 1870. After the teachers' seminary in Omsk, he served as psalm reader in churches of the Omsk diocese, was ordained deacon on 22 June 1898 and priest on 24 October 1902. From 1906 he served in Kopyevskoe, from 1911 in Novo-⁠Rozhdestvenskoe, from 1913 in the settlement of Bozhedarovsky, and after 1917 in the village of Alexandrovka in Semirechye, then in the Trinity church in Alma-⁠Ata and at last in the church of Saint Nicholas.

On 10 December 1932 the OGPU arrested Archpriests Alexander, Stephen and Philip. In prison they caught typhus. When their condition became hopeless they were moved to a typhus barrack, but they stayed there only a short time. On 17 January 1933 Archpriest Philip Grigoryev died, on 18 January Archpriest Stephen Ponomarev, and on 20 January Archpriest Alexander Skalsky. All three were buried in the cemetery where at that time the peasants exiled to Alma-⁠Ata were buried. Saint Philip is commemorated on 17 January.