On September 29 (September 16 on the Julian Calendar) we commemorate Saint Gregory Raevsky, Priest and Martyr of the Communist Yoke, who reposed in the Lord in 1937.
Hieromartyr Gregory was born on September 28, 1888 in the village of Zavidovo in the Tver province to the family of Deacon Gregory Raevsky. Soon after graduating from the Moscow Theological Seminary, Gregory married Lydia Vasilyevna Belyaeva, the daughter of the priest of the village of Zavidovo. In 1912, Gregory Raevsky was ordained a priest to the Assumption Church of this village.
The young priest devoted all his strength to the church and its parishioners, and his wife became his assistant in caring for the church. There was complete harmony and peace between them in everything. The only thing that somewhat darkened their married life was that they had no children. In 1913, a husband and wife from the village died almost simultaneously, leaving three orphans, and Father Gregory and Matushka Lydia took one of the girls, Anna, who was then eight years old. They raised her as their own, and later, when their daughter Nina was born in 1922, they made no difference between the children, and the girls themselves treated each other like sisters.
Fr. Gregory was arrested for the first time in 1927. He was imprisoned in Butyrka prison and accused of allegedly spreading false rumors, but the investigation revealed the priest's complete innocence, and the authorities were forced to release him after two months.
At the end of 1929, simultaneously with collectivization, persecution of the Orthodox Church began. Young communists, authorized by the city, arrived in Zavidovo to help unite peasant farms into collective farms.
On Saturday, February 8, at a general meeting of peasants, the chairman of the Zavidovo village council announced that a demonstration was scheduled for Sunday, February 9, to show the superiority of collective farming over individual farming. Carts were assembled, horses decorated with red ribbons, to travel through neighboring villages and show that almost all of the Zavidovo peasants had joined the collective farm. By the appointed time, eleven o'clock in the afternoon, a small group of peasants had gathered near the village's reading hut (a local institution of the Bolshevik program of universal indoctrination). The organizers of the demonstration decided that it was impossible to travel with such a large number of people, and waited another two hours. But even then, no people had gathered. Then someone present said that the reason there were no people was because all the people were in the church, where a solemn service was taking place.
Having heard about this, the secretary of the Komsomol cell sent two Komsomol members to the church to find out what was going on there. When they entered, they saw that a service was going on and the church was full of people. The organizers of the demonstration decided that it had failed because of the service, and the agitation event was cancelled.
About six hundred people gathered in the church that day, and more than half were communicants. Fr. Gregory was concelebrating with Fr. Nikolay Dmitrov. While Fr. Gregory served the service, Fr. Nikolay confessed the communicants, and when Fr. Nikolay began to serve the liturgy, Fr. Gregory began to confess. Because there were so many communicants, the service lasted until three o'clock in the afternoon.
This fact alone was enough for the OGPU to start an investigation the very next day with the aim of arresting at least one of the priests. First of all, the OGPU officers found out that Fr. Gregory enjoyed the greatest authority and love among the parishioners and residents of Zavidovo and the surrounding villages in general. And so an investigation into his church activities began. Komsomol members, members of the collectivization brigade, the chairman of the Zavidovo village council and a local political education worker (izbach) were summoned. Here is some of the testimony they gave:
"I know Raevsky well. The latter often gives sermons in church, especially on patronal feasts, Trinity, St. Peter's Day, Dormition and Michaelmas. He begins his sermon on the theme of the holiday and ends: 'Believers, a difficult time has now come, father and son, brother and brother do not get along together and rise up against each other. Religion is being persecuted now.' In addition, Raevsky also said, that is, compared the Gospel teaching with the present moment: 'Why do father and son not get along? Because the father believes in God, but the son does not.' And he called on believers to believe in God even more strongly and not to succumb to the enemy's teaching."
"Our Zavidovo priests are very cunning and clever in their own way. In order to prevent their church from being taken away, they collected signatures among the village peasants, saying that by collecting a large number of signatures, we can defend the church from possible seizure."
"The demonstration was disrupted by priestly and kulak agitation. According to available information, priest Gregory Raevsky gave a sermon in the church. He gave an example: 'Brothers, when a ship sinks, the crew is saved, but the captain must die.' From Raevsky's words it is clear that he will fight the Soviet government until he dies. Therefore, I consider the continued presence of priests in Zavidovo to be absolutely dangerous for the construction of collectivization."
On the very day of Fr. Gregory's arrest, August 14, 1930, the OGPU summoned the chairman of the village council for questioning, who expressed his categorical opinion on the necessity of arresting the priest: "In December 1929, Raevsky came to me at the village council for permission to go from house to house to conduct the Christmas service. Then I, as the chairman, did not allow him, and he said that your task is to strangle religion... Priests often come to Raevsky from unknown places and, under the guise of a service, hold some kind of meetings. I believe that Raevsky is the first counter-revolutionary who organizes the masses with the help of the church."
The local reading hut testified: "The priest of the village of Zavidovo, Raevsky, is indeed the organizer of the masses to disrupt all the activities of the party and the Soviet government."
Of the believers, the OGPU summoned the church warden, who, answering the investigator's questions, did not assume that they were asked with the sole purpose of arresting the priest, and did not read the interrogation protocol, but as the investigator wrote down his testimony:
"I was the church warden of our Zavidovo church for about twelve years... I know my priests, Raevsky and Dmitrov, well. The dean Gregory Gregoryevich Raevsky gives the most sermons. He gives sermons on patronal feasts, Trinity, Ilyin's day, Assumption, Michael's day. On these days, there are a lot of people in the church. His favorite sermons are about the prodigal son, about the sufferings of Jesus Christ. He ended with an appeal to believers to raise their children in the spirit of God, to beware of the Antichrist and the devil's teaching, not to believe it and not to succumb to deception, for the argument that there is no God comes from the mouth of an evil person... The sermon of priest Gregory Raevsky was so effective that many, leaving the church, cried."
On August 14, OGPU officers came with a search warrant and arrested the priest. By that time, Fr. Gregory had already been searched several times, ending with the confiscation of his already meager property. At one time, he and his wife had a farm, kept chickens, a cow, had a garden, a vegetable garden, and a harmonium in the house. By 1930, nothing was left, everything had been confiscated as payment of taxes, including the harmonium, which was taken by the local club. Fr. Gregory was left with only a small cupboard with dishes, a chest, and narrow country rugs. The OGPU officers once again turned everything over in search of valuables, wanted to search the bed of the priest's daughter, who was sleeping peacefully during the search, but the other daughter, Anna, did not allow the child to be disturbed, and they backed off.
At first after the arrest, Fr. Gregory was kept in Zavidovo, and then sent under escort to the Tver prison. Fr. Nikolai Dmitrov was summoned for interrogation and asked about the arrested priest. Father Nikolai, well aware of the cunning of the persecutors, insisted on writing down the answer in his own hand:
"Priest Gregory Gregorievich Raevsky did not show anything against the Soviet government and did not express any dissatisfaction to me."
"Why and when was he arrested?" asked the investigator.
"He was arrested by the Klin authorities, he sat there for sixty-two days; when he returned, he did not say why he was in prison. I don't know anything else about him. I don't know what other words he says in his sermons, except for the good ones."
The head of the church was summoned to the OGPU again. The fact that such a respected priest had been arrested shocked him. Seeing how the OGPU dealt with the innocent and only sought an excuse to close the church, he replied:
"I have been a church warden for over ten years and I know priest Raevsky as a man who is neither for nor against the Soviet regime. Whether Raevsky touches on political issues in his sermons, I do not know, since I have to stand behind the candle box all the time. Our church is large, and I cannot hear everything he says. I have never had the chance to go with him to the parish, and I do not know how he behaves among the peasants."
On August 21, Father Gregory was summoned for questioning. He answered the investigator's questions:
"Last year I rarely preached sermons in church, sometimes on the twelve great feasts, this year I preached sermons during Lent. The sermons were purely religious in content, I did not touch on politics and did not even hint at it... I never spoke out against collectivization. On February 9, 1930, I did not participate in organizing the ceremonial service in the church and did not serve, but arrived at the church at nine o'clock in the morning and began to serve prayers after matins. At that time there were about six hundred people, of whom about three hundred were confessors. I am still surprised by what caused such a visit to the church... I do not admit my guilt in the charges brought against me. I have nothing more to show and consider the testimony against me a lie."
On January 5, 1931, the OGPU troika sentenced the priest to five years in a labor camp. Fr. Gregory was sent to hard labor, to build the White Sea-Baltic Canal in the Vologda region, not far from the city of Vychegda. Now, only written communication and rare visits remained between the relatives; Lydia Vasilyevna went to one of them with her daughter Nina, who was then ten years old. They were housed outside the camp in a large gray barracks; Fr. Gregory came to visit them in the evening after work and each time brought his rations - a soup poured into a deep bowl.
Fr. Gregory was released from prison in early 1934, and he returned to Zavidovo and began serving in the church. Life was difficult, he sold the house to the collective farm, and he lived with his family first in the house of Fr. Nikolai Dmitrov, and then rented an apartment from a kind woman not far from the church. Later, when his daughter Nina was left alone, the house, sold while her parents were still alive, gave her the opportunity to get an education at school, since the collective farm paid the orphan small amounts for this house for several years.
On May 12, 1935, Fr. Gregory's wife died of rapid consumption. At the end of winter, when she came to the church during cleaning, she felt sorry for the work of those cleaning, took off her shoes, and from this she caught a cold and died three months later. Her daughter Nina was left in the care of her father and godfather, Fr. Nikolai. She studied the first four grades in Zavidovo, but she was not accepted into the fifth grade because she was the daughter of a priest, and she again entered the fourth grade, graduated from it, but she was again not accepted into the fifth, and she entered a school in a neighboring village in Spas-Zaulka - this was already in the Moscow region. Nina studied the fifth and sixth grades there, and finished the seventh again in Zavidovo. She finished seven grades in the spring of 1937. She studied well, and Fr. Gregory, having looked at the certificate, praised her and said: "Daughter, you must study, I don't know what will happen to me, but you must study." She fulfilled her father's behest, graduated from the printing institute, held a high position, but never hid the fact that her father was a priest. And through the prayers of her later martyred father, the Lord guided her path to the good, and she never felt in anything that she was deprived of something because her father was a priest of the persecuted Church.
Fr. Gregory was of a meek and open disposition, never raising his voice to anyone, not excluding his daughter, even when she showed her disobedience. She would want to go visit her friend, on the eve of a great feast or on Sunday, and Fr. Gregory would say, "No, you're not going anywhere today."
"Dad, I'm going," the daughter would reply.
"No, you're not going anywhere."
"I'll go."
"No, you won't go."
"No, I'll go."
And then he would say:
"Well, go."
But she would say it in such a way that she would not go anywhere, but was only waiting for the right moment to ask for forgiveness.
In the summer of 1936, the chairman of the regional commission on cults suggested to the dean of the Zavidovsky district to gather the clergy and discuss the draft of Stalin's constitution. Only two priests came, and one of them was Fr. Gregory. Having understood what exactly he was invited to discuss, Fr. Gregory refused the discussion, saying that since he was deprived of civil rights as a priest, he could not discuss the draft constitution. At this point, the meeting of the three priests ended, and no one would have remembered it if new persecutions had not come a year later.
Fr. Gregory was arrested on July 30, 1937. At the time when the NKVD officers came to his house, he was in the forest, where he often went to pick mushrooms and berries. He returned home, and here once again there was a search, but there was nothing to take, they took only a letter from the priest Alexander Preobrazhensky, who, after his release from prison, was sheltered by Fr. Gregory. Fr. Alexander wrote to him, saying, "I sincerely and heartily thank you, dear father, for your help and shelter; I will never forget your kind, brotherly attitude and responsiveness."
The day after the arrest, Zavidovsky NKVD investigator Shevelev interrogated the priest:
Do you plead guilty to the charge brought against you?
I do not plead guilty to the charges brought against me, since I did not conduct any agitation among the population aimed at 'vulgarizing,' as you claim, the activities of the Soviet government and the party.
Tell me, how often do you or Dmitrov give sermons in the church in the village of Zavidovo?
- I personally preached sermons during Great Lent from mid-March to May 1, 1937.
Tell us what you talked about in your sermons to believers?
- In my sermons I spoke about the importance of confession, preparation for it, and communion.
Tell me, what kind of collections did you hold among believers, for what purposes and how much money did you collect?
- Collections are made by the church warden by walking around with a plate; from the general collections the church council or warden passes them on to me, and I in turn forward them to the destination - to the bishop for the maintenance of the patriarchate, diocesan administration, for the preparation of the world.
Tell us about the composition of the church council of the church in the village of Zavidovo.
- I don't know the members of the church council, I only know the chairman of the church council, the church warden Vasily Gregorievich Golenkov, a native of the village of Zavidovo.
As often happened in such cases, there was no basis for the accusation, and then they began to call parishioners in for questioning. Among others, they called the church warden Vasily Golenkov.
Tell me, do you know Gregory Gregorievich Raevsky?
- I have known Gregory Gregorievich Raevsky, the priest of the church in the village of Zavidovo, for about twenty years. I met him in church, on the street, sometimes he visited me at home, we drank tea.
Tell me, what did you talk about with Raevsky during your meetings?
- We talked about life, talked about the affairs of the community of believers. On the issue of believers visiting the church, Raevsky said that believers and those who want to visit the church cannot come, since they are connected with work on the collective farm, and if there was a day off on Sunday, there would be more worshipers. In addition, Raevsky told me that one must believe in God and hope in God.
Tell me, how often did Raevsky give sermons in church and what did he say in his sermons?
- Raevsky did not preach sermons in church often; in his sermons he spoke about the meaning of the holiday, and also said that one must believe in God and hope in God.
They began to call the priest's neighbors for questioning, but they also testified that they knew Fr. Gregory well as a person loyal to the state authorities. The wife of the dean, Fr. Sergiy Mazurov, was called, and the investigator asked her:
Tell me, what facts about Raevsky's counterrevolutionary statements do you know?
- In the summer of 1936, my husband, as the dean, was asked to discuss the draft of Stalin's constitution with the clergy. My husband sent out summonses to all the priests of the deanery. Of all the priests who showed up, Dmitrov and Raevsky responded to the summonses. Raevsky refused to discuss the draft constitution, saying that the constitution does not give us, the clergy, anything. He did not take into account all of my husband's arguments, saying that if you need it, you can discuss it, write whatever you like.
The parishioners and many residents of Zavidovo sincerely loved Fr. Gregory, and even some of the jailers sympathized with him. Thanks to them, he was able to send short notes to his loved ones for some time. On August 4, he wrote to Fr. Nikolai, his wife Ekaterina, daughter Nina, and the owner of the apartment, Maria:
"Dear Fr. Nikolai, Ekaterina Nikolaevna, Nina, Maria Yegorovna and others and others, all who are dear to me and remember me. Hello. Your love and memory and prayers for me touch me deeply and give me strength and peace to endure the trial that awaits me. Charge 58-10, and I don't know what it is yet; I have not been presented with a single fact - I wait every day. I hope that you all will not abandon my Nina and will replace her mother and father in my absence and thereby relieve my anxiety about her. To get a meeting and hand over a package in Kalinin, you need to get permission from investigator Shevelev at the Zavidovo station or from the head of the NKVD Glebov. But that's by the way. While the investigation is ongoing, no correspondence is allowed."
The next day, the investigator interrogated the priest again.
The investigation has materials about your counter-revolutionary activities and insists on sincere testimony. Tell me, do you intend to give sincere testimony about your counter-revolutionary activities?
- I say again that I was not involved in any counter-revolutionary activities.
The investigation has materials that, for the purposes of counterrevolutionary agitation, you vulgarized the laws of the Soviet Republic on the issue of ministers of religious cults. You said that if they decide to put us in jail, they will put us in jail and find materials for charges, regardless of any laws. Do you confirm this?
- The meaning of the question is clear and familiar to me, I could only say this to someone close to me, but for my part I do not consider this statement counter-revolutionary agitation.
Tell me, what are your views and opinions on the issue of the Stalinist constitution project?
- On the issue of discussing the draft of Stalin's constitution, at the suggestion of representatives of the cultural commission of the Kalinin regional executive committee, all the clergy of the region were supposed to gather at Dean Mazurov's and discuss the draft, but only I and Dmitrov showed up. I said that since we were deprived of voting rights, we could not discuss this draft. Thus, the question remained open.
The investigation has information that you expressed your dissatisfaction with the collective farm system, saying that the collective farmers want to go to church, but cannot, because they do not have days off.
- I deny that.
On this day he wrote to his family:
Dear Nina, I won't have to write to you for a long, long time. I don't know now how long I'll be there, but you'll have to live alone. Try to be a good girl - watch yourself, don't be rude, watch your words. Try to study - it will be useful to you throughout your life. Listen to the advice of Fr. Nikolai, Ekaterina Nikolaevna and Maria Yegorovna - they will never wish you anything bad. Be good to everyone - and everyone will treat you the same way. Now I'll write to you when I get to the camp.
10:30 p.m. How I would like, my dear daughter, to talk to you... I remember all of you, my dear and near ones: although I have prepared myself with the thought of separation from you, it is still hard for me. I console myself with the hope that it is God's will that I live far away from you again. He, the Good One, sends a trial - He will give me the strength to endure it...
So don't worry about me. I propose the following plan for a meeting: when the departure day is found out - trains at 10:50 in the morning and 1:50 in the afternoon - Nina and someone else can buy tickets to Kalinin, let them sit in the same carriage, and I hope that we will be able to talk the whole way, you will be informed about the departure day somehow. If possible, that would be good. The departure should be in a few days, come every day to the designated trains - and everything will be fine. And now forgive me, who have I offended in any way, I ask for your prayers for me, a sinner, so that the Lord will give me the strength to endure the trial a second time.
I kiss everyone very much - my greetings and peace of mind to everyone.
Shortly before being sent to Tver prison, Fr. Gregory wrote to his daughter:
7.8.37. 7-30 in the morning. Dear Nina, I don't know yet how long we will have to part, but I hope - whoever I asked will replace your father and mother. Try to study - make every effort so that you end up an excellent student, listen to what they advise you, no one from the aforementioned persons will give you bad advice... Remember your mother - don't forget me... Behave well, if I find out something contrary, it will be very hard for me...
Fr. Gregory was sent to the Tver prison, and his relatives were not able to see him, but information came from the prison that he was alive, and one day they reported when and how they could see him.
Daughter Nina and Fr. Nikolai's mother, Ekaterina, arrived in Tver, arrived at the appointed time at the building where the NKVD administration was located; a prisoner transport vehicle was parked at the entrance. They stopped at a distance, on the opposite side of the street, and saw Fr. Gregory come out of the entrance accompanied by an escort. He did not look at the other side of the street, did not look around, and did not see them. This became their last meeting.
September 28 was Fr. Gregory's birthday, he turned forty-nine. The next day, the NKVD Troika sentenced the priest to death. Archpriest Gregory Raevsky was shot immediately after the verdict was announced, on September 29, 1937.
To this day, the memory of the holy martyr Gregory is preserved among the Zavidovo parishioners - his service, care for souls, his mercy and martyr's death. The holy martyr was buried in a mass grave in one of the cemeteries of Tver; the exact burial place remains unknown.
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.
