Sergius Spassky

Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Spassky was a priest of the Dormition church in the village of Belye Kolodezi near Moscow, and he was shot at Butovo on 27 November 1937, after passing through a camp.

The priest He was born on 10 April 1884 in the churchyard of Teremets, Serpukhov district, in the family of the priest Nicholas Alexandrovich Spassky. In 1900 he graduated from the school at Perervo, in 1906 from the Moscow Seminary, and was named teacher in the village of Bolotovo. In 1909 he was ordained priest for the Dormition church in Belye Kolodezi, Kolomna district, where he served all his life, a life marked by persecution. He lived with his wife Olga, they had no children, and he gave all his time to the church.

The persecution In 1929 two chairmen of village councils presented to the authorities threatening notes that had been thrown at them, suspecting a peasant of the village; the case died out because the author could not be proved. In November 1929 the authorities demanded a large tax from the parish, hoping to close the church, but the peasants paid. A group was arrested and accused of "anti-⁠Soviet activity of cult servants and former merchants"; on 30 December the priest was questioned. He did not admit guilt, and the church watchman said that he often preached and spoke of the weight of the taxes. The church was to pay 1,200 roubles; the believers gathered and resolved to give six roubles per household. Several members of the church council withdrew in fear, and poor women took their place; Father Sergius approved, saying it would be safer so. When he was arrested, a priest from a neighbouring village served a molieben for the arrested pastor and gave so moving a sermon that the listeners could not hold back their tears. On 19 January 1930 the inquiry closed; Father Sergius added that he did not admit guilt. On 29 January 1930 the Special Council sentenced him to three years in a camp, and the peasant Sergius Egorov and the church warden Dimitri Zakharov received three years of exile. The priest was sent through Butyrka and served the whole three years. He returned to his parish and from 1934 served again at the Dormition church.

Martyrdom On 19 and 21 November 1937 witnesses were questioned; the chairman of the village council said the priest held counter-⁠revolutionary talk against the new constitution, and that in April he had said in an exchange that one need no longer go to church, since that man too had sold out to the Bolsheviks. Father Sergius was arrested on 21 November 1937 and imprisoned at Kolomna, questioned the same day, and denied counter-⁠revolutionary agitation. The same day the inquiry closed. On 23 November an NKVD troika sentenced him to death, he was taken to a prison in Moscow, and he was shot on 27 November 1937 at the Butovo range and buried in an unknown common grave.

He is commemorated on 14 November in the old style, that is 27 November in the new style, and, in the new style, on 29 May (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.