Simeon Kulgavets

Holy Hieromartyr Simeon Kulgavets was a priest in the village of Yakot, Dmitrov district, near Moscow, a refugee from Poland, and was shot at Butovo on 21 February 1938.

He was born on 2 February 1882 in the settlement of Lomazy, Biala district, Siedlce province, in the family of the peasant Demyan Kulgavets. His father died when Semyon was three, the family was poor, and his mother worked for hire. He finished the school for psalm-⁠readers and served as psalm-⁠reader in a church of the Biala district. In 1915, when the Germans occupied Kholm province, he went to central Russia, was received as a refugee at the Nikolo-⁠Peshnosha Monastery in the Dmitrov district and lived there a year. From 1917 to 1922 he was a militiaman in Moscow. In 1922 he asked the bishop to be assigned and was sent as psalm-⁠reader to the church in the village of Dulovo, Korcheva district, Tver region, and in 1925 he was moved to the church in the village of Orudyevo, Dmitrov district. In 1930 he was ordained deacon and, in the same year, priest for the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the village of Yakot.

On 18 January 1938 he was arrested on a charge of anti-⁠Soviet agitation and imprisoned at Butyrka. Witnesses stated that he had said: a new constitution has appeared, but the persecution of the Church has not stopped, churches are closed again and priests are taken for nothing; they say the Church is separate from the state, but Soviet power takes taxes from priests. Asked why he left Poland in 1915, he answered that he had no purpose, but was compelled to go because his region was occupied by the Germans and he left as a refugee. He did not admit guilt. On 11 February 1938 an NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and on 21 February he was shot and buried in an unknown common grave at Butovo.

He is commemorated on 21 February 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.