Victor Smirnov

Holy Hieromartyr Victor Smirnov was an archpriest at Protopopovo, today part of the city of Kolomna, and was shot on 8 December 1937 at the Butovo firing ground.

He was born on 20 October 1875 in the village of Ilinskoe in the Zvenigorod district, Moscow province, in the family of the psalm-⁠reader Paul Smirnov. He finished the Zvenigorod theological school in 1891 and the Bethany seminary in 1898, and was a teacher at a parish school in the Mozhaisk district. On 7 November 1902 he was ordained priest for the church of the Prophet Elijah in the village of Sandyri, Kolomna district. In April 1930 he was moved to the church of the Nativity at Khotyainovo, and in March 1934 to the church of the Holy Trinity at Protopopovo. For his diligent service he was raised to archpriest in 1927, in 1930 he received a cross with decorations, and in 1936 the palitsa.

In 1930 he was sentenced to three months of forced labor for not paying a tax. On 27 November 1937 he was arrested and held at Kolomna. The next day two witnesses who knew him well signed records in which they accused him of anti-⁠Soviet activity. Questioned, the archpriest denied it: he had never carried on counter-⁠revolutionary activity. Asked whether he knew the witnesses, he answered that he did, but rejected their testimony and refused to admit guilt. The investigation closed the same day, and he was moved to Taganka prison in Moscow. On 1 December an NKVD troika sentenced him to death. He was shot on 8 December 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave.

The saint is commemorated on 8 December and, in the new style, on 29 May (movable) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo and on 5 September (movable) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow.