Stephen Nalivaiko

Holy New Martyr Stephen Nalivaiko (Stefan Pimenovich Nalivaiko) was a peasant and church singer from present-⁠day Ukraine, born in 1898 in the village of Konstantinovka, Berdyansk district, Tavrida province, and died of hunger on 12 February 1945 at Norilsk. He was arrested and exiled several times. He was numbered among the new martyrs of Russia by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church in the year 2000. He is remembered on 14 November.

Childhood and youth

He was born into a peasant family, in Konstantinovka, in the present-⁠day Zaporizhzhia region. His mother, Euphrosyne Romanovna, had a great influence on his upbringing and taught him to believe in God. He attended the parish church school for three years, then the school attached to the Grigorievo-⁠Bizyukov monastery. He returned home and helped his father, Pimen Konstantinovich, but at fourteen he went to Genichesk. The source later calls him "the sixteen-⁠year-⁠old", so his age at leaving is not certain. He settled at the metochion of the Korsun-⁠Bogoroditsk monastery, sang in the monastery choir and studied the church typikon with zeal. Then he returned home and was a singer at the village church.

In February 1917 he was mobilized into the army. After training he was sent to the Romanian front, but soon was captured and taken to the camp of Lamsdorf, where he did forced labour. After the German occupation of Ukraine, he received permission to return home from captivity. But in Germany revolution broke out, and the prisoners were forgotten. Stephen crossed several borders by himself and returned home, where he became a psalm-⁠reader. Soon he married an orphan, Kharitina Sevastyanova. A year later their daughter, Raisa, was born. In 1923 he suddenly changed his life: he left his house, wife, daughter and farm and went to Moscow, to the Danilov monastery.

The arrests

At Moscow, at the funeral of a man of the Church, he gave a sermon against Soviet power. For this he was arrested and taken to the OGPU. At the interrogations he conducted himself with assurance and dignity. According to the records, he acted as a fool for Christ and answered in parables. For "counter-⁠revolutionary activity" he was held in Butyrka prison. On 26 October 1923 he was sent, by decision, to Solovki for three years. In the camp he fell ill with scurvy and his legs lost their strength. After three years he said again at interrogation that he did not renounce his convictions, for which he received another three years of exile, this time in Kazakhstan. In September 1932 he was released and returned to his village, where he looked after the church life of the village and led the choir himself. He refused to work on the collective farm, for which in April 1935 he was tried and the third time sentenced to arrest and exile to Vladivostok. From there he sent a complaint to Moscow, which was upheld, and he returned home again.

Last years

In the summer of 1937 he moved to Simferopol, not hiding his religious convictions. The priest of the church of All Saints informed against him and on 20 April 1940 he was arrested for the fourth time. On 7 April 1941 he was sentenced to five years of exile in a labour camp at Norilsk. With the war, contact between Stephen and his family broke off, and only in January 1945 did a letter come from him: "Three months remain until the end of my term. God willing, we shall yet live together". No more letters came. After a time, his daughter Raisa wrote to the Gulag administration to ask about her father's fate and received the answer that Stefan Pimenovich Nalivaiko had died on 12 February 1945 of hunger.

Canonization

By decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church, Stephen Nalivaiko was numbered among the new martyrs of Russia, his commemoration being on 14 November.