Sozont Reshetilov

Holy Hieromartyr Sozont Reshetilov was a priest in Ukraine and then in the village of Mishino in the Moscow region, and was shot at Butovo on 5 November 1937.

He was born on 21 September 1894 in the village of Kocherzhintsy, Uman district, Kiev province, in the family of the peasant Feodor Reshetilov. After the parish school he entered a monastery as a novice and stayed there until 1915, when he was drafted into the army, in which he served until 1918 as a junior non-⁠commissioned officer. In 1918 he married Ekaterina Stepanovna Targonskaya, a deeply believing girl of a devout family. Resolved to become a priest, he took pastoral courses, and in 1921 was ordained deacon at the Alexander Nevsky cathedral in Uman, then in December priest at the church of Saint Nicholas in Korzhevyi Kut. In 1924 he was moved to Tomashovka, in 1928 he was arrested for non-⁠payment of taxes and sentenced to three months in prison, and in 1930 the church was closed. In 1931 he was assigned to the village of Sychovka, then returned to Kocherzhintsy, but did not stay long, because of the stiffening persecution and a conflict with the family of his sister, whom he dearly loved and who had married a party leader of the district. More than once he spoke of the faith with his sister's husband, but the man stayed unshaken in his atheism.

In 1932 he moved to the Moscow region and served at the church of Saint Nicholas in Mishino, Zaraysk district. All who knew him testify that he was a man convinced in the faith and a zealous pastor of righteous life. After the authorities decided on pitiless persecution, NKVD men in Zaraysk gathered false testimony; one said that the priest had publicly opposed the closing of the church. On 21 October 1937, about one in the night, three NKVD officers came into his house and arrested him. He received them calmly, having long been ready. For three days he was interrogated in the Zaraysk prison and firmly rejected all charges of anti-⁠Soviet and counter-⁠revolutionary activity, and then was moved to Kolomna. On 3 November an NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and on 5 November 1937 he was shot and buried in an unknown common grave at Butovo.

He is commemorated on 5 November 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.