The Cathedral of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church includes the names of priests Andrei Zimin, Gregory Nikolsky, Pavel Kushnikov and Nikolai Zavarin

The Cathedral of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church includes the names of priests Andrei Zimin, Gregory Nikolsky, Pavel Kushnikov and Nikolai Zavarin В Собор новомучеников и исповедников Церкви Русской включены имена священников Андрея Зимина, Григория Никольского, Павла Кушникова и Николая Заварина print version April 4, 2019 16:20 On April 4, 2019, the meeting of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church heard the reports of the chairman of the Synodal Commission for the canonization of the holy Bishop of the Holy Trinity Pankratia concerning the petitions received from the heads of Primorye and Kuban Metropolis to include the names of Archpriest Andrei Zimin ( magazine No. 29 ) and priest Gregory Nikolsky (journal No. 29 ) and priest Gregory Nikolsky (journal No. 29 ) and Priest Grigory Nikolsky. 30) to the Cathedral of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church. The Bishops ’Jubilee Council of 2000 determined:“ In post-election time, to include the new martyrs and confessors of Russia in the composition of the already famous Cathedral of the Holy Baptism with the blessing of the Holy Patriarch and the Holy Synod, based on preliminary studies conducted by the Synodal Commission on the canonization of the saints ”(paragraph 14 of the Act on Conciliar Glorification New martyrs and confessors of Russia). The Synod decided to include the names of Archpriest Andrei Zimin and the priest Gregory Nikolsky into the Council of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church. The memory of the holy martyrs will be performed: to Archpriest Andrei - on January 5/18, to Priest Gregory - on June 27 / July 10, in the days of their martyr's death. Also, participants in the meeting re-examined the issue of including a number of names in the Council of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church (Journal No. 31). Earlier, having familiarized himself with the materials presented by the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints, the Holy Synod found it necessary to decide on the inclusion of the names of priest Pavel Kushnikov ( magazine No. 122 of December 28, 2017) and priest Nikolai Zavarin ( magazine No. 124 of December 28, 2018) on consideration of the Bishops' Council. Having studied the additional information received from the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of the Saints to this meeting, the Holy Synod found it possible to return to the consideration of this issue. It was decided to include the names of the priest Paul Kushnikov and the priest Nikolai Zavarin in the Council of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church. The memory of the newly glorified saints will be performed on the days of their martyrdom: the martyr Pavel Kushnikov - February 23 / March 8, the martyr Nicholas Zavarin - August 6/19. The honorable remains of the martyrs Archpriest Andrei Zimin, the priest Gregory Nikolsky, the priest Pavel Kushnikov and the priest Nicholas Zavarin, if they are found, will be considered holy relics and they will be given proper reverence. Newly glorified saints are supposed to write icons for worship, according to the definition of the VII Ecumenical Council. *** Archpriest Andrei Simeonovich Zimin was born on August 14, 1872 in the family of the Trans-Baikal Cossack. After completing the full course of the Blagoveshchensk Theological Seminary, he was ordained in September 1894 as deacon and priest to serve in the cathedral of the city of Blagoveshchensk, where he was also appointed catechist and legislator of the parish school at the cathedral. He was zealous in preaching and conducting conversations with parishioners. In connection with the formation of the Vladivostok diocese, he was transferred in 1900 to the place of the abbot of the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the village of Chernigovka. Here, as in Blagoveshchensk, Father Andrei Zimin diligently began to develop public education. He regularly published sermons and sermons in the diocesan journal. During the years of his reign, under his leadership, a two-story stone building was built in the village under a four-year school and a one-story brick building for a single-class ministerial school. In 1901 he was appointed Provost in the Chernigov volost. During the first ten years of service, the number of churches of the deanery has doubled. By his efforts at several temples, the Brotherhood of Sobriety was opened. Father Andrei paid great attention to the upbringing and education of children, teaching people the basics of Orthodox dogma, preserving traditions in performing religious services, and was an active participant in diocesan congresses. In 1913, at the request of the Holy Synod, he was awarded by the sovereign the Order of St. Anne (III degree). In the same year he was elevated to the rank of archpriest. In 1916, Archpriest Andrei Zimin was awarded the sovereign Order of St. Anne (II degree) "for special works incurred due to wartime circumstances". In 1918-1922 guerrilla groups of Bolsheviks acted in Primorye, who in June 1919 robbed the residents of Chernigovka and took the priest of the church with them to the taiga as a hostage. After keeping Father Andrey in captivity for about a month, after humiliations and insults, they let him go home in July of the same year. A few months later, on the eve of the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, on the night of January 18, 1920, armed people rushed into the house of the priest, who began to cruelly torture him and his family members, after which they shot the wife, the mother-in-law and the daughters of the priest, and he himself was thrown onto the floor, they put a door on his chest and, standing on it, crushed Father Andrey with their weight. Father Andrei, according to the testimony of his relative priest John Konoplev, shortly before his death, he had a dream in which he was shown his future suffering death. Having described what he saw in the letter, he passed it on to Father John with permission to open the envelope after death. The bodies of the victims — the father’s superior Andrei and members of his family: Lydia’s wives, Domnik’s mother-in-law, and four daughters — were buried in ecclesiastical order in a common grave near the temple in Chernigovka. The exact burial place has been lost today, but the parishioners have installed a memorial cross near the church, where he would be the abbot, to which pilgrims come. *** Priest Grigory Nikolayevich Nikolsky was born on November 13, 1854 in the stanitsa of the Yaryzhenskaya Oblast of the Great Don Army to the family of a Cossack priest. Upon graduation from the Novocherkassk Theological School in 1871, he entered the civil service, which he completed as a provincial secretary in the Astrakhan province. In 1883 he was ordained deacon and priest, after which he served in various localities of the Astrakhan diocese , while taking an active part in the activities of the Astrakhan branch of the Missionary Society. From 1892 he served in the Stavropol Diocese , where, under the parish he headed, he organized a free public reading room. In those years, he regularly visited the Nicholas Caucasian Missionary Monastery, devoting himself to solitary prayer. From 1915 until his death, he was a cleric of the Black Sea Mary-Magdalinskaya female desert in the Kuban province. Here he headed the school of the women's department of the Kuban correctional shelter operating at the monastery, devoting much time and effort to conversations with the pupils. He also took care of the consolation of wounded soldiers who were in the monastery hospital. During his earthly life, Father Gregory was revered among people as a zealous and worthy shepherd, a talented teacher and temple founder. For his impeccable service and active educational activities, he was repeatedly awarded the diocesan authorities. Father Gregory’s life was filled with active love for one’s neighbors, care for the Christian enlightenment of children and adults. In the summer of 1918, the Kuban was seized by revolutionaries, and Soviet power was established everywhere. The Bolsheviks abused the population and carried out regular reprisals against the clergy. On June 27, one of the Bolshevik detachments came to the monastery. After the completion of the Divine Liturgy in the Ascension Cathedral of the monastery, the soldiers arrested Father Gregory and, with mockery, took him out of the church enclosure. Here the priest was severely beaten. When he tried to cross himself with the sign of the cross, punitive deliberately struck his hands. Then, with the words “we will attach you”, they fired a revolver in his mouth. The memory of the priest Gregory Nikolsky is especially revered in the restored Marie-Magdalinsky monastery, where memorial services are held regularly for him. *** Priest Pavel Aleksandrovich Kushnikov was born on December 16, 1880 in the family of a priest of the Transfiguration Church of Modena in the Ustyuzhensk district of the Novgorod province. In 1905 he graduated from the Novgorod Theological Seminary. He worked as a teacher parish schools. In 1913, he was ordained deacon and priest and appointed to serve in the Belsky church of Ustyugen county, where he was cleric for the next five years - until his death. During the First World War and the Revolution, the clergyman was concerned not only about the spiritual and moral well-being and health of his flock, but also about providing flocks with food. To this end, he created a parish public consumer store, distributing food between the parish residents. In 1917, some of the parishioners wrote a denunciation of him to the Ustyuzhensk county commissariat. He was charged with propaganda of disobedience to the new government, but according to the results of the investigation, Father Pavel was acquitted. On February 22, 1918, he was unexpectedly arrested by two delegates from the Ustyug Executive Committee, accused of hiding weapons for the “White Guards”, although nothing was found during the search. On February 23 (old style), Father Pavel was taken outside the village of Belskoye to the swamp and shot. His feat was testified by the Metropolitan of Novgorod and the Old Russian Arseny (Stadnitsky), presiding at the meeting of the All-Russian Church Council on April 9, 1918. September 20, 1918 at the last meeting of the Council, the Secretary of the Council V.P. Shein (the future holy martyr Sergius) in his report “On the Persecutions of the Church and the New Martyrs” among the clergymen “who suffered for the faith and the Church” mentioned the priest Paul Kushnikov. *** Priest Nikolai Kelsiyevich Zavarin was born on May 4, 1878 in the village of Kichmenga town of Nikolsky district of the Vologda province to a priest family. In 1892, he entered the Nikolsky Theological School, from which he expelled in 1895 due to illness. In 1897, having passed the exam for the title of a teacher of parochial schools, he entered the school of Verkhomolomsky Spasskaya parish school (Nikolsky district of the Vologda province). In August 1900, he was appointed acting psalm-reader of St. Nicholas Church in the village of Vyatsko-Nikolskoye of the same county. At the same time, the psalter Nikolay Zavarin was a teacher in a number of other schools. In 1913, he was ordained to the surplice, and in 1916 he was ordained a deacon to the same St. Nicholas Church. On April 25, 1926, in the midst of persecution of the Church, he was ordained to the priesthood and appointed to serve in the Vladimir Church of the village of Piksur. In 1931, he was convicted by the Narod court of Narzud for one year of imprisonment for failure to pay the arrears, but on the petition of his daughter Nadezhda on February 27, 1932 he was acquitted by the Nizhkraisud Presidium. Freed from prison, Father Nicholas served in the Trifonovskaya church in the village of Berezovo, Yuryansk district. In November 1932, he was again arrested for "anti-Soviet activities" and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1933, he was released early, after which he returned to the village of Pixur. In September 1935, activists of the Varzhensky Village Council decide on the closure of the Vladimir Church in the village of Piksur, ostensibly on the basis of the decision of the majority of voters living in the territory of the parish. The temple was covered with grain. With the blessing of Father Nikolai, the parishioners, led by his daughter, applied to Moscow with a petition to open the church. In December 1935, an order from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to clean the church from oats within three days was handed to the Darovsk prosecutor. From the village council there were several more attempts to close the church under various pretexts, but each time the believers managed to defend their temple. February 16, 1937, Fr Nikolai and his daughter Nadezhda were arrested. Father Nicholas was accused of “being the organizer of a counter-revolutionary group among people close to the church, he conducted anti-Soviet agitation, called on women to unite around the church and fight against Soviet power, spread rumors about the fall of Soviet power and reprisals against God-offenders, agitating about the wrong policy of the Soviet government leading to hunger, explained the correctness of the struggle of the Trotskyists ". When arrested and searched, Father Nikolai answered the question about weapons: my weapon is the Gospel and religion, and I fight with them. During the investigation, the priest did not admit his guilt, and answered the questions of the investigator about “counter-revolutionary activities”: “Since I served in the church, I tried to maintain faith among the population, to defend the church so that it would not be closed, but I never spoke with anti-Soviet agitation.” He did not give any names, did not blame anyone, including his own false witnesses from among the clergy. Priest Nikolai was shot on August 19, 1937.