Holy Martyr James Leonovich

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).

Icon Cathedral of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russian

Yakov Leonovich - from the family of Altarnik, the village of Neelov, Smolensk district. After the end of the seminary was ordained a priest. He served in with. Nikolo-Kremennaya of the Safonovsky district of the Smolensk region.

In the early 1930s, he was arrested with his wife Anna Ivanovna, on charges that, receiving a small silver and copper coin from the peasants for the performance of a ruff, they did not give it to the state and thereby, as said in the indictment, contributed to the lack of a bargaining coin, preventing the economic development of the Soviet state. The priest was sentenced to two years in ITL, and his wife, taking into account the advanced age (she was sixty years old) by one year conditionally with a trial period of three years.

After liberation from the conclusion, he began to serve in the village. Yegorye of the Belsky district of the Western (now Tver) region.

On August 15, 1937, the NKVD arrested the psalmist in the village of Yegoryev, who agreed to confirm the testimony of the priest Jacob Leonovich, the head of the temple and the chairman of the revision committee in the church council imposed on him by the investigator. On September 3, an employee of the NKVD arrested the priest, the oldist of the temple Georgy Kozlov, the chairman of the revision commission of Peter Kozlov and the church watchman Evdokim Ivanov. They were accused of "anti -Soviet activities." None of the arrested pleaded guilty.

On September 10, the investigator questioned him about. Jacob.

- The investigation has data on your counter -revolutionary activity among the population, what will you say to this?
- I did not engage in counter -revolutionary activities.
- The investigation has data that during the meeting of members of the Church Council, you conducted counter -revolutionary activities.
- I have never conducted counter -revolutionary activities among these people, I have never read newspapers.
- The investigation has data that you conducted counter -revolutionary activity among the believers of your parish and the surrounding population, speaking of the death of Soviet power, hunger in the country, the dissolution of collective farms, and so on. What do you say to this?
- I did not tell anyone about this ...
- The investigation has data on your counter -revolutionary activity on the issue of violent closure of churches and the destruction of religion through large taxes on the church and clergy.
“I never told anyone that.”

Ten days after the interrogation, the three NKVD sentenced the priest and psalmist to be shot. The headman and watchman of the temple were sentenced to eight years, and the chairman of the revision commission to ten years in the forced labor camps.

The priest Jacob Leonovich was shot on September 28, 1937 at four in the afternoon.