Vladimir Vorobyov

Vladimir Nikolaevich Vorobyov (1876-1940) was a mitred archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church, a preacher, confessor and friend of many scholars and artists of Moscow, arrested three times and dead in the prison of Spassk-⁠Tatarsky (today Bolgar). He is the grandfather of Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov, rector of the Orthodox Saint Tikhon's Humanitarian University. The sources available to us record no canonization of him. We classify him in our archive as a confessor for what he endured, but we have no act of glorification; it cannot be said here that he is a canonized saint.

Youth and ministry

He was born in the village of Lopukhovka in the Atkarsk district, in a peasant family. In 1899 he graduated from the seminary at Saratov, married Olga Kuznetsova and was ordained deacon, then priest. In 1899-1910 he served at the Tikhvin convent at Kraishevo. In 1910-1914 he studied at the Moscow Archaeological Institute. From 1910 he served in the house church of the icon "Joy of All Who Sorrow" of the Brotherhood of the Queen of Heaven on Zubovsky Boulevard in Moscow, assigned to the church of the Dormition in Kazaki, at Polyanka.

After 1917 he denounced in his sermons the repressions of the new power. Before a service of supplication for the decree separating the Church from the state, he said, in brief, to the dwellers of Smolny that they would never be obeyed: the Church would perform all the mysteries and services, and if they took her churches, she would serve in houses and in underground places; if they took the antimensia, they would serve without them, with the blessing of their bishops; if they took the holy vessels, they would offer the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of the Lord in household vessels. Without it they cannot live, for the Holy Eucharist gives joy, unearthly rapture and strength to struggle and to suffer manfully. They did not fear persecution and torment, their maimed bodies would pierce the conscience of the persecutors, and the victory of Christ over the new paganism would be undoubtedly theirs.

From 15 October 1918 until December 1924 he was rector of the church of Saint Nicholas in Plotniki, on the Arbat, where he began to serve after the death of Archpriest Joseph Fudel. He was a well-⁠known preacher, confessor and friend of a number of scholars, philosophers and men of culture, and was close to Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky). He venerated especially the wonderworking icon of the Mother of God "Derzhavnaya" ("The Reigning") and often went to Kolomenskoye to read the akathist before it. From 12 December 1923, by decision of the Holy Synod, he was appointed a member of the Moscow diocesan council under Patriarch Tikhon.

Arrests

He was arrested on 10 December 1924, on the charge that he had "systematically carried on anti-⁠Soviet agitation among the mass of believers, spreading false rumors of persecutions of the Church and ministers of worship by Soviet power and of the interference of foreign states in defense of the Church". He was held in Butyrka. By decision of the OGPU collegium of 14 March 1925 he was released under obligation not to leave the city, on the day of the icon "Derzhavnaya". The investigation continued in connection with a group case, "the case of Archbishop Peter (Rudnev)", and on 16 May 1925 the case was closed, "since the investigation did not confirm the said offense".

From 1925 until November 1930 he served again at the church of Saint Nicholas in Plotniki and was dean of the Dorogomilovo district. The altar server of Archpriest Vladimir was the specialist in theoretical mechanics Nikolai Bukholts, later head of the chairs of theoretical mechanics at the MEI and Moscow University. The scholar Vladimir Shchelkachev, a parishioner of the church, remembered that Fr. Vladimir had all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, love, peace, joy, that in his parish were the painter Nesterov with his whole family, the pianist Igumnov, professor at the Conservatory, and other known and simple people, and that his sermons, given not only after the Liturgy but after each vigil, were deep but also clear to all. In 1927 he was awarded the mitre by the locum tenens, Archbishop Seraphim (Samoilovich). In spring 1928 he was sent, with Archbishop Juvenal (Maslovsky), to Yaroslavl, for negotiations with Metropolitan Agathangel (Preobrazhensky), and after the conversation with them, Metropolitan Agathangel, gravely ill, was reconciled with the locum tenens, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky).

He was arrested for the second time on 4 November 1930, in Moscow. He was held at Lubyanka, then at Butyrka. On 3 September 1931 he was sentenced by the OGPU collegium, on the charge of taking part in the "all-⁠Union counter-⁠revolutionary organization 'True Orthodox Church'" (articles 58-3 and 58-11), to ten years of camp, counted from 4 November 1930. From 1931 he was in Svirlag, at Lodeynoye Pole, in the Leningrad region. On 21 October 1932 he was released from the camp for a heart condition and exiled to Kazan, to Spassk-⁠Tatarsky, renamed Kuibyshev in 1935 (today Bolgar).

On 24 August 1938 he was arrested a third time, following a slanderous denunciation. He was accused of being a participant and one of the leaders of a "priestly-⁠monarchist organization" in Moscow, of belonging to the "party of the Name-⁠glorifiers", of organizing another party, preparing terrorist groups, collaborating with the Socialist Revolutionaries and sympathizing with Trotsky and Bukharin. He was imprisoned at Spassk. A cellmate who was released told that Fr. Vladimir was very kind, grieved for everyone, encouraged them and had the love of all; a Tatar, for whom no place was found in the crowded cell, he let onto his own bunk, beside himself. In prison one more case of "anti-⁠Soviet agitation" within the prison was fabricated and sent for judgment to the "special conference". Most probably he would have faced shooting, but the harsh form of detention and his no longer young age broke his health, and he died on 16 February 1940, "of heart paralysis", in prison no. 7 at Kuibyshev (formerly Spassk-⁠Tatarsky, now Bolgar), in Tatarstan. He was buried on the alley nearest the prison. His grandson, Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov, says that it was clear that the death sentence was decided and that, if he had not died in prison, he would probably have been shot.