Vsevolod Smirnov

Holy Hieromartyr Vsevolod Smirnov was an archpriest in the village of Dermentsovo, Moscow province, and was shot on 13 November 1937 at the Butovo firing ground.

He was born on 25 March 1874 in the village of Troitskoe in the Zvenigorod district, in the family of the priest Basil Smirnov. He finished the Moscow seminary in 1897 and was a teacher in the village of Bumerovo, where he married Nadezhda Alexeyevna Uvarova. In 1900 he was ordained priest for the church of the Dormition in the village of Dermentsovo, Volokolamsk district. For his blameless service he was raised to archpriest in 1926.

In the autumn of 1929 rumors reached the OGPU that on the feast of the Holy Prophet Elijah he had said in a sermon: "All the people have sinned before God, God sends various punishments upon them. They must repent, God will forgive. When the prophet Elijah lived on earth, the people also became corrupt, and God sent famine. So now too, if the people do not repent, there will be famine and various calamities." The OGPU plenipotentiary drew from this the conclusion that the priest "systematically carries on anti-⁠Soviet agitation, calling Soviet power 'God's punishment for the sins of the people'", and on 19 October 1929 ordered his arrest. He was held at Butyrka. He answered at the investigation that he had not carried on anti-⁠Soviet agitation, that in his sermons he touched only religious themes and did not discuss politics, being sickly and withdrawn. He asked that witnesses be called to prove his innocence, but the investigator called no one. On 18 November 1929 he was sentenced to three years of exile in the Northern Territory, in the village of Leshukonskoe, Arkhangelsk region. In poor health and ill, he was released at the end of 1932. The parishioners asked that the priest be sent again to their church, and on 22 January 1933 Archpriest Vsevolod was appointed to Dermentsovo, where he served until 1937.

On 10 October 1937 he was arrested, accused of "slanders against Soviet power, defeatist moods and anti-⁠Soviet agitation in the village campaigns". He denied them both at the investigator's questions. On 11 November an NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and Archpriest Vsevolod Smirnov was shot on 13 November 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave at Butovo.

The saint is commemorated on 13 November 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.