The holy martyr Vasily Nikitsky

The persecution of Soviet power to the Russian Church was such that it was not to say about their faith, but even silently follow it as a feat. The new martyrs and confessors, glorified in the face of the saints did not come: believed, prayed and meekly went to their Calvarys.

“Polit.ru” recalls those who gave their lives for faith and by whose prayers the Russian Church is alive - even if almost nothing came to us besides the name.

Publications were prepared by Kirill Kharatyan (included by the Russian authorities in the register of foreign agents).

The holy martyr Vasily Nikitsky

In 1913, Vasily Nikitsky graduated from the Betan Theological Seminary and entered the school at the Pavlovo-Posad factory in the Bogorodsky district. He married the daughter of a priest Catherine, a teacher of the same school, they had three children.

In December 1915, he was ordained a priest to the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin in the village of Porechye, Mozhaisk district. The church was built at the expense of the counts of Razumovsky and Uvarov. In 1920, the Bolsheviks mobilized Vasily's father in the rear militia, six months later they released him from the army due to illness, and he returned to serve in the temple in Porechye.

The parish was poor, and the priest’s family mowed and stocked hay for a cow, cultivated the garden and looked after the garden.

In 1929, the authorities attempted the temple to close, but the priest opposed. On August 30, 1929, an employee of the secret department of the Moscow District Department of the OGPU drew up a document that the priest at meetings "processed" public opinion against the closure of the church: up to a thousand signatures were collected and the mood of believers was extremely excited; At the meetings, anti -Soviet and anti -communist shouts were heard. OGPU decided that at large about. Vasily will harmfully affect the work of local organizations and the mood of the population. Father Vasily was arrested on September 4, 1929.

The investigator began to call witnesses. The secretary of the local Komsomol cell gave the following indications: “Nikitsky agitates parents of non -partisan youth not to abandon the temple. In February, at the Volost Congress, a proposal of peasants was made to close the Poretskaya Church. Nikitsky through his fans, in particular Nikanor Gavrilovich Ivkin, arranged a meeting in Ivkin’s house, where there were many non -partisans, especially girls and women, where they decided to subscribe to the closure of the church. Komsomol members were not allowed for this meeting. ”

A member of the Church Council said this: “Our temple needs to be kept at all costs. Building the temple was worth the big works of Count Razumovsky and subsequently Uvarov. Nikitsky, in order to keep the temple, proposed registering believers against the closure of the temple "

Nikanor Ivkin gave the following indications: “Nikitsky took over the whole initiative to church affairs. On his initiative, the Church Council carried out the work on registering all believers, and he indicated that this work needs to be carried out as wider as possible, since the more signatures, the bolder we will demand from the authorities to leave the church alone. The Nikitsky man is smart and cunning, it is not possible to find out his thoughts regarding the authorities in a private conversation. In the sermons, attacks against the Soviet government, regarding the policy of raising children and youth, for example: Soviet power corrupts them and makes them moral cripples who do not know anything saint. ” But signing the protocol, Nikanor Ivkin attributed: "He personally did not hear this expression."

O. Vasily was sentenced to three years of exile, and he was sent for logging in the Vologda region. After the link about. Vasily again began to serve in the temple in Porechye, but was soon transferred to the temple in the village of Ilyinskoye, Volokolamsk district. In 1934, the priest was sent to serve in the temple in the Taldom district. Here he served until 1937 and was transferred to the temple in the village of Borisovo, Mozhaysky district, where he served for six months. The authorities told the priest that the temple would necessarily be closed for tax evasion, and the hierarchy sent Vasily's father to the temple in the village of Lostevo, Volokolamsk District, where he began to serve on January 18, 1938.

On February 12, 1938, the chairman of the Losteevsky village council compiled a characteristic for the NKVD for Vasily's father. In it, he wrote that the priest dissolves rumors that the Soviet government does not allow him to serve, does not allow people to catch on the cemetery, forcing them to bury them like dogs. In a rural store, in line for galoshes, the priest said that the Soviet government had nothing to trade. The Communists got down to business, but in fact, they didn’t succeed - 150 people cost in line, and only 20 pairs were brought in the galoshes.

An unknown scammer wrote to the local police inspector that in Losteva Pop was conducting anti -Soviet propaganda. On February 7, Pop stood near the church and said that on February 15 there would be a service and a sermon would be said in the temple, which he proposed to notify the entire population. “I ask the police inspector,” the applicant wrote further, “take urgent measures to the ass. You know well that the Supreme Council will soon be. Popovskaya agitation will be our mass work in the village. ”

On February 26, 1938, the priest was arrested.

- You are arrested for counter -revolutionary and anti -Soviet activities that you conducted among the population and surrounding persons in the village of Lostevo. Give testimony!.
- I did not conduct counter -revolutionary and anti -Soviet activities.
- On February 3, you, Nikitsky, standing in line for galoshes in the store of the Uliyevsky Selpo, expressed dissatisfaction with the Soviet regime and the party of the CPSU (b). Do you find yourself guilty?
- Yes, indeed, I stood behind the galoshes in line, but there were no counter -revolutionary and anti -Soviet performances on my part.
- The investigation found that your house was visited by unauthorized persons, among which you carried out counter -revolutionary activities. Give true testimony on this issue: who personally visited you and what work did you do with them?
- My apartment was visited by the deacon of the Spirirovsky Church, whose last name I do not know, one citizen from the village of Valuyki Volokolamsk district and the former church headman Maria Boldin, with whom I met in Moscow in the Patriarchate, - she called me to serve in the village of Lostevo. I did not conduct counter -revolutionary activities among visitors.

On March 4, 1938, the Troika of the NKVD sentenced Father Vasily to shoot. Priest Vasily Nikitsky was shot on March 14, 1938 and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo training ground