Vladimir Damaskin

Saint Vladimir Damaskin, hieromartyr, was a priest of the Russian Church, born at Torzhok in 1870 and shot on 29 December 1937. He was numbered among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia by the Jubilee Council of Bishops of August 2000, for veneration throughout the Church. He is commemorated on 16 December by the old calendar, which is 29 December by the new.

He was born on 27 February 1870 at Torzhok, in the Tver governorate, the son of Nikolai Damaskin (died 1914), a psalm-⁠reader. After receiving the priesthood he served at the church of the village of Ostrovno.

In 1930, in the wave of persecution of the Russian Church, he was arrested, was held for two and a half months and then released. He returned to Ostrovno and continued to serve.

Seven years later, on 22 December 1937, he was seized again and taken to the prison of Bezhetsk. By then he was almost completely blind and, after a medical examination in the prison, was classed as an invalid. Nevertheless "witnesses" were called who testified about Damaskin's "anti-⁠Soviet activity", which was said to consist in collecting signatures against the closing of the village church, in performing the sacraments in the homes of collective farmers and in services that distracted the collective farmers from "processing and delivering flax fiber to the state". The holy martyr did not admit guilt of "anti-⁠Soviet activity". Five days after his arrest the NKVD troika sentenced him to death. He was shot on 29 December 1937.