On October 13 (September 30 on the Julian Calendar) we commemorate Saint Prokopius Popov, priest, martyr under the Communist yoke, who reposed in the Lord in 1918.
The village of Sholga in the Vologda province comes close to the water of the wide Yug River. Not far from the shore, a large, slender church in the name of the Holy Trinity has been built. The parish comprises more than a hundred villages, and in Sholga itself there is a deanery, three priests, two deacons and three psalm-readers serve.
Troubles were already rolling across Russia. Before the civil issues, they were spiritual, and who else but the priests could see the fall and moral devastation? Outwardly, life was improving for some, but a terrible end was already foreseeable. Knock on a tree that looks healthy, and the sound will reveal a hollow.
The First World War was underway; some thought that Russia stood firm, while others already saw that things were coming to an end. Long before the revolution, the rector of the church, Father Prokopiy (Prokopius) Popov, showed the church trustee the tsar's money and said:
"Look, Vasily Vasilyevich, the time will soon come when this money, (Tsar) Nikolai's, will be stuck on the walls, and no one will need it."
For the pious trustee, this sounded like a call to revolution. Enraged, he barely refrained from scolding the priest sharply. Time passed, the tsarist government fell, the temporary government was carried away by a turbid wave, and the entire thousand-year history of Russia began to tilt and be redrawn, all the rainbow colors faded, and the future became eclipsed.
The revolution happened, 1918 arrived, the Bolsheviks organized punitive detachments that exterminated clergymen and laymen who enjoyed the authority of the population throughout the country. On October 13, before the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God, the punitive detachments came to Sholga and arrested Father Prokopiy. A pit was dug in the middle of the field. Confident in their power and impunity, they decided to shoot during the day, without preventing the people from being present.
Once upon a time, pagan Roman soldiers, seeing the lawless murder of Christian martyrs, professed themselves Christians. Now, before the eyes of his flock, they they silently handed over their shepherd to be slaughtered.
The newly-minted rulers showed that there would be no limit to cruelty, and this ruthless determination had a paralyzing effect on the population. It was a time of brazen, triumphant evil.
Father Procopius stood before the grave, prayed, said goodbye to the parishioners, bowed to the ground to them and said:
"Forgive me, a sinner."
The parishioners began to weep. The priest took off his cassock, gave it to his sons, who had been standing nearby the whole time, and remained in his cassock. Then he turned to face the east, prayed again, and said:
"I'm ready."
A shot rang out. Father Prokopiy fell. He was killed by a second shot.
At first the priest was buried right there in the field, but his sons began asking for permission to move his body to the cemetery. The authorities refused, but the relatives did not stop bothering, and finally they were given permission to bury the holy martyr in the cemetery of the village of Koskovo.
He was canonized as a New Martyr and Confessor of Russia at the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000 for universal veneration.