Stephen Znamirovsky

Archbishop Stephen Znamirovsky (in the world Nikolai Ivanovich Znamirovsky, 1879 to 1942) was a bishop of the Russian Church, from 1933 of Vologda, a learned seminary teacher, a remarkable preacher and a confessor in the time of Soviet persecution. He was arrested several times, spent years in camp and exile and was shot in 1942 at Verkhny Chov, in the Komi Republic. It must be said that the sources at hand mention no canonization of him, neither by any canonical Church nor by any other. We therefore present him as a confessor hierarch whose case for canonization calls for a decision.

Family and training

He was born on 21 April 1879 at Irbit, Irbit district, Perm province, to the family of a justice of the peace. After his father's death he was raised by his mother, who died in 1923. He graduated from the theological school at Perm. In 1900 he graduated from the Perm seminary and entered the Kazan Theological Academy, where his confessor was Schema-⁠Archimandrite Gabriel (Zyryanov). He graduated from the academy in 1904, with the degree of candidate in theology.

The teacher

From 1904 he taught Greek, liturgics and homiletics at the Perm seminary, and from 1908 was its inspector. He was treasurer of the society for aid to needy pupils of the seminary, went with seminarians on pilgrimage to Palestine, was a member of the council of the trusteeship of the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God, collegiate assessor (1909), teacher of the New Testament at the pastoral and missionary school of "John of Kronstadt" (1911), member of the council of the brotherhood of Saint Stephen, court counsellor (1912), awarded the Orders of the Holy Sepulchre and of Saint Stanislaus, second class (1913), collegiate counsellor (1915), member of the Perm branch of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (1916) and of the diocesan church council (1917). He was unmarried. In 1917 he was a candidate for the see of Yekaterinburg (that year unmarried laymen could take part in the elections) and received the support of 138 of 277 participants at the diocesan congress.

In 1917 and 1918 he was a member of the Local Council of the Russian Church, elected as a layman from the Perm diocese, took part in the first two sessions, was secretary of section VIII and member of others. He held conservative views: he opposed the election of the clergy by parishioners and upheld services in Church Slavonic, allowing the spread of service books in Russian only "to make believers acquainted with the content of the church prayers". From 1918 he was rector of the Perm seminary.

The priest

In 1919 he retreated to Siberia with the army of Admiral Kolchak, where he was ordained priest. Under Kolchak's government he gave sermons calling believers to fight the Bolsheviks. In 1919, in the square at Omsk, he called citizens to join the "Holy Cross" brigades, for the fight against the Bolsheviks, and went with a group of agitator priests about Siberia. From 1920 he was parish priest at Omsk, from 1921 at Shadrinsk, and was raised to archpriest. In 1923 he was arrested at Shadrinsk in the case of Bishop Lev (Cherepanov), in September was moved to Butyrka, at Moscow, and on 2 October 1923 was released by amnesty.

The bishop

In August 1924 he was tonsured a monk, and on 30 August, in the cathedral of the Daniel monastery, was consecrated bishop of Shadrinsk, vicar of the Sverdlovsk diocese, by Patriarch Tikhon himself. In 1924 he temporarily governed the Perm diocese. He had authority among the faithful and showed himself a resolute opponent of the Renovationist movement. He was known too as a gifted preacher. Contemporaries say one had to see Nikolai Ivanovich at the moment of preaching: he became alert, his gaze was directed far off, his voice rang commanding and his whole appearance was majestic.

On 28 January 1926 the deputy Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), sent Bishop Stephen a telegram by which the clergy and faithful of the Yekaterinburg diocese, in connection with the local hierarch Gregory (Yatskovsky)'s participation in the so-⁠called "Gregorian" schism, were to turn until then in all church matters to Bishop Stephen. On 29 January Metropolitan Sergius sent a new telegram by which Gregory was removed from the see of Yekaterinburg and commemoration of him at the service was to cease. On 18 September 1926 he was arrested at Shadrinsk and spent four months in the Sverdlovsk prison. On 14 January 1927 he was sentenced by the OGPU Special Council, under art. 58-5 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, to three years' ban on living in large cities and in the Urals (in fact he was exiled to Kazan).

On 16 September 1927 he was named bishop of Kaluga, but he declined the appointment, since he did not accept the so-⁠called "Declaration", and on 10 July 1928 was removed from governing the diocese. On 27 July 1928 he was suspended from service by Metropolitan Sergius. He lived at Vyatka. From 24 April 1929 he was bishop of Vyatka and Slobodskoy. On 28 April 1930 he was arrested and on 18 September 1930 sentenced under art. 58-13 to three years in camp. He served the sentence at Solikamsk, in the Ural (Krasnovishersk) special camp. From 16 June 1933 he was bishop of Ulyanovsk, and from 5 October 1933 bishop of Vologda. On 23 March 1934 he was raised to archbishop. On 9 June 1934 he sent Metropolitan Sergius a report congratulating him on his elevation to metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna.

Last arrests and death

On 25 September 1935 he was arrested at Vologda, did not admit guilt in leading a "counter-⁠revolutionary church-⁠kulak organization" and was sentenced under art. 58-10 to five years of deprivation of liberty. The sentence was annulled on 9 April 1936 by the Special Collegium of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR and the case sent for re-⁠investigation. On 21 August 1936 the Special Council of the NKVD sentenced him, for "anti-⁠Soviet activity", to five years' exile in the Northern Region. He served the exile in the village of Tentyukovo (today within the city of Syktyvkar), where he lived with his cell attendant at the home of his niece, Anna Timofeevna Rogozina.

On 14 June 1938 he was arrested again, accused that "at counter-⁠revolutionary gatherings he raised the question of uniting churchmen of all trends for organized struggle against the Soviet power". On 24 March 1939 the Supreme Court of the Komi ASSR sentenced him to three years' imprisonment, which he served at the Verkhny Chov colony. In June 1941 he was released, but two months later, on 9 August 1941, he was arrested for allegedly conducting in the colony "counter-⁠revolutionary agitation and religious propaganda". He did not admit guilt. On 17 October 1941 he was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of the Komi ASSR. After rejection of the appeal, the sentence was carried out on 18 March 1942, at 1.10 a.m., in the settlement of Verkhny Chov. He was buried in the cemetery of the colony, today in the city of Syktyvkar, but the exact place of the grave is not known. He was rehabilitated on 20 May 1964 for the charges of 1936, on 6 April 1989 for those of 1941 and for the sentence of 1930, and on 7 August 1992 for those of 1927.