Varlaam Nikolsky

Venerable Martyr Varlaam Nikolsky (in the world Vasily Mikhailovich Nikolsky) was an abbot of the Russian Church, born in 1872 and shot on 19 November 1937, at the Butovo firing range. He was numbered among the venerable martyrs for veneration throughout the Church by the Jubilee Council of Bishops of 13 to 16 August 2000. He is remembered on 6 November on the old calendar (19 November on the new) and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

Service

He finished the theological school and in 1895 entered as a novice at the Chudov monastery in Moscow, where he was soon tonsured a monk with the name Varlaam. About 1909 he was ordained hierodeacon, then hieromonk. Between 1917 and 1925 he served at the church of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker in Plotniki (Arbat), between 1925 and 1929 at the church of the Saviour on Peski (Arbat), and in 1929 he was raised to the rank of abbot.

On 28 December 1930, during the mass arrests of the clergy and monks, he was arrested for the first time. At the interrogation of 31 January 1931 he said: "to the question about my attitude toward the present order, I declare: I am a monk, an adherent of the Church of Tikhonite orientation, so I am accustomed to obedience, and since political power is given by God, I submit to it fully and even support it. I have no relatives either in the Union or abroad, apart from the brother mentioned, and no correspondence, so I move only among my parishioners". At the end of the interrogation he was sentenced to three years of exile in Kazakhstan for counter-⁠revolutionary activity, shown in anti-⁠Soviet agitation.

Martyrdom

After his return from exile he was sent to serve at the church of the Intercession in the village of Dyakovo, Moscow region. On 20 October 1936 he was moved to the church of the Intercession in the village of Andreevskoe, Dmitrov district. He was arrested a second time on 5 November 1937 on the charge of anti-⁠Soviet agitation and shut in the Taganka prison in Moscow. False witnesses said that Abbot Varlaam "in recent times tries in every way to widen and strengthen the influence of the Church on the population and for this purpose has increased the services, and, instead of serving only on Sundays, has introduced services on days off for the workers of the Yakhroma factory, and the services last very long". At the interrogations he did not admit guilt. Asked whether he had carried on anti-⁠Soviet agitation, he said that he had indeed spoken among the people that citizens should marry in church and had advised those who came to him, but that he had not carried on anti-⁠Soviet agitation. About the elections he said only that in any case we would not be called to vote. About schoolchildren he told that last year, passing by the school, a pupil asked him where man comes from, saying that the teacher had said in the lesson that man comes from the ape, and asked what he thought, and he answered him that from God. He said nothing more. Asked whether he admitted guilt, he answered that he did not.

The special troika of the NKVD of the Moscow region sentenced him by decision of 17 November 1937 to death by shooting. He was shot on 19 November 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo firing range.