Nikitsky, Vasily Petrovich

Born in the family of the psalm-reader Peter Nikitsky and his wife Catherine. The family had nine children.

He graduated from the Volokolamsk spiritual school . In 1913 he graduated from the Bethany Theological Seminary , after which he entered to work as a teacher in a school at the Pavlovo-Posad factory in the Bogorodsky district. Soon he married the daughter of a priest Ekaterina Mikhailovna Nechaeva, who worked as a teacher at the same school.

On December 15 ( 28 ), 1915 , he was ordained a priest at the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin in the village of Porechye, Mozhaisk district .

First arrest

First arrested on September 4, 1929 on charges of anti-Soviet agitation and imprisoned in the Butyrka prison in Moscow. During the interrogation on September 7, he answered: “I did not use my position as a priest for anti-Soviet agitation. I never said anything anti-Soviet among the peasants or believers in the parish. ”

On November 15, the investigation was completed and on November 18, Father Vasily was sentenced by a Special Meeting at the OGPU College under Art. 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to three years of imprisonment. In conclusion, he worked in the timber industry enterprise.

After returning from prison in 1932, Father Vasily began to serve again in the village of Porechye, and then was transferred to the church in the village of Ilyinskoe, Volokolamsk District . In 1934 he was sent to serve in the temple in the Taldom district .

Last arrest and martyrdom

He was arrested for the second time on February 26, 1938 . Imprisoned in Volokolamsk . Fragment of interrogation from March 2 :

- You are arrested for counterrevolutionary and anti-Soviet activities that you carried out among the population and those around you in the village of Teryaevo. Give testimony on this issue!

- I didn’t conduct counterrevolutionary and anti-Soviet activities.

- On February 3, you, Nikitsky, standing in line for the galoshes in the shop of Teryaevsky selpo, expressed dissatisfaction with the Soviet government and the party of the CPSU (b). Do you plead guilty to this?

- Yes, indeed, I stood in a queue behind the galoshes, but there were no counter-revolutionary and anti-Soviet speeches on my part.

- The investigation revealed that your home was visited by unauthorized persons, among whom you carried out counter-revolutionary activities. Give true testimony on this issue, who personally visited you and what work did you do with them?

- The deacon of the Spirovskaya church, whose name I don’t know, visited my apartment, one citizen from the village of Valuyki, Volokolamsk district, and the former churchwarden Maria Boldin, whom I met in Moscow in the Patriarchate, she called me to serve in the village of Teryaevo. Counter-revolutionary activities among visitors, I did not lead.

On March 4, 1938, he was sentenced by the " special troika " of the NKVD to be shot for "active counter-revolutionary agitation and harsh anti-Soviet propaganda."

He was shot on March 14, 1938 and was buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo range .

He is canonized holy martyrs and confessors of Russia for general church worship by the decree of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of December 27, 2000.

Memorial Day: March 1 (14) and in the Council of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia .

• Vasily (Nikitsky) in the project Drevo, the Open Orthodox Encyclopedia
• The Holy Martyr Vasily (Nikitsky) (inaccessible link) // Hegumen Damaskin (Orlovsky). Lives of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia of the 20th Century Moscow Diocese. January-May. - Tver: Bulat, 2002, pp. 171-176.
• The Holy Martyr Vasily (Nikitsky) (inaccessible link) // Hegumen Damaskin (Orlovsky). Martyrs, confessors and devotees of piety of the Russian Orthodox Church of the XX century. Book 6 . - Tver: Bulat, 2002, pp. 71-76. Circulation: 10,000 copies.
• The “New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Orthodox Church of the 20th Century” database of the St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Institute .
• Nikitsky Vasily Petrovich