Vyacheslav Zankov

Holy Hieromartyr Vyacheslav Zankov was an archpriest in the village of Kotelniki near Moscow and was shot on 13 October 1937 at the Butovo firing ground.

He was born in 1892 in the town of Sychyovka in Smolensk province, in a noble family. His father, Sergius Zankov, was inspector of the people's schools of Moscow and Moscow province. In 1914 he entered the University of Moscow, finished in 1918, and was a teacher at school number eleven in the Rogozhsko-⁠Simonovsky district. In 1920-1921 he worked in the education department of the district, and between 1921 and 1923 he was a staff member of the department of higher schools in the People's Commissariat of Education, being already a priest. He was ordained priest in 1920 for the church of the Holy Trinity at Zubovo in Moscow, where he served until 1932, when he was moved to the church of Saint Nicholas in Khamovniki. He was raised to archpriest, and in 1934 received a cross with decorations. In the same year he was moved to the church of the Protection at Cherkizovo, and in 1936 to the church of the Kazan icon at Kotelniki.

There he organized the repair of the church, preached tirelessly and called the parishioners to earnest prayer. The chairman of the village council accused him of agitation among adolescents and children and of making them pray. Witnesses said that he spoke to women about abortion: many, out of want, kill their children without fear of sin, but they should not let themselves be tempted.

The priest was arrested in the night of 16 to 17 September 1937, accused of counter-⁠revolutionary activity and held at Taganka prison. At the arrest typewritten lectures of Professor N. D. Kuznetsov of the Moscow Theological Academy (1922), a manuscript of 1912 by the priest Basil Krasnosamarsky of Samara and his own notes on apologetics from 1923 were found. The investigators paid great attention to these writings. He said he kept them as a memento of Professor Kuznetsov, that he had given them to no one and had not copied them. Asked about the collection of money for repairing the church, he said that he had given a sermon and the faithful had collected the money. To all the other questions about counter-⁠revolutionary agitation he answered "I deny it." On 9 October an NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and Archpriest Vyacheslav Zankov was shot on 13 October 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave.

The saint is commemorated on 13 October 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.