Platon Gornykh

Saint Plato Gornykh, hieromartyr, was a priest in Russia, in the Perm governorate, and was shot on 27 July (9 August) 1918, when Red soldiers attacked the village of Pokrovskoe. In July 2002 he was glorified among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia by the diocese of Yekaterinburg. The Church commemorates him on 27 July / 9 August.

He was born into a priest's family. After finishing the theological school at Yekaterinburg he entered the Perm seminary, which he finished in 1881, in the second category. After marrying he was ordained priest and assigned to the church of Saint Simeon in the village of Medvedevskoe, Verkhoturye district. In 1885 he was transferred to the church of Saint Nicholas in the village of Osintsevskoe, Irbit district, where he served almost seven years. In 1892 he was transferred to the church of Saint John the Forerunner in the village of Timinskoe, Yekaterinburg district, and in April 1894 he was sent to the village of Pokrovskoe, Irbit district, to the church of the Protection of the Mother of God, where he served until his martyr's death. Besides Pokrovskoe, Father Plato would go from time to time to serve in the village of Bolshe-⁠Trifonovskoe, where for a long time there had been no priest.

Besides his pastoral duties, Father Plato carried the obedience of missionary and teacher of religion. In the parish there were two parish schools, one in the village of Pokrovskoe and another in the village of Bolshe-⁠Trifonovskoe. At the school in Pokrovskoe Father Plato taught religion.

On 27 July / 9 August 1918 soldiers of the Red Army attacked the village of Pokrovskoe. About a hundred houses were burned and the church of the Protection was looted. The priest Plato was shot. He was buried on 29 July / 11 August in the parish cemetery. For his service he was several times rewarded: in 1904 with the skufia, in 1915 with the kamilavka, and in October 1908, by decision of the spiritual consistory and the Holy Synod, with the Order of Saint Anne, third class, for blameless twenty-⁠five years of labour in popular education.