If, fathers and brothers, all our knowledge were to put together, it would be nothing compared to the knowledge of John Vasilievich.”
Archbishop Hilarion (Troitsky) on the New Martyr John Popov
Popov: this surname, one of the most common in Russia, does not necessarily connect the family of its bearer with the priesthood. There are two possible origins: from the nickname “pop” or from the colloquial word for a priest. But in our case this surname is very significant: both the grandfather and the father of the future martyr were priests.
John Vasilievich Popov
Priest Vasily Mikhailovich Popov served at the Holy Resurrection Church in the town of Vyazma in te Smolensk province. It was in his family that on January 17, 1867, a boy was born, who was named Vanechka [an affectionate form of the name John/Ivan.—Trans.]. And on January 19 the infant John was baptized by his grandfather, Archpriest Mikhail Popov, in honor of St. John Chrysostom.
The Life of the martyr John tells us nothing about his childhood, so we can only speculate. Endowed by God with high intelligence and a chaste soul, John grew in the virtues and scholarly knowledge, which can be attributed not only to him, but also to his wonderful parents. His mother Vera Ivanovna and father, Fr. Vasily, must have contributed in every possible way to the development of piety and spiritual knowledge in their child. The fruits of their common labors were truly marvelous. This is how a contemporary and a fellow prisoner at the Solovki Special-Purpose Camp wrote about his personality: “In secular life John Vasilievich was a true monk, celibate and virgin, a humble toiler, an abstainer in food and drink, and a devout man of prayer. All those who knew him are witnesses to this. Having the gift of Divine grace, the word of knowledge (cf. 1 Cor. 12:8), he increased his talent tenfold through his labors, served the Church for its great benefit, and glorified it with his martyrdom.”
But that was still a long way off. At the age of twenty-one John graduated from the Smolensk Theological Seminary and immediately entered the Moscow Theological Academy. John Vasilievich studied at the Academy from 1888 to 1892. That period was interesting because of the change of rectors of the Moscow Theological Academy: Professor Archpriest Sergei Konstantinovich Smirnov resigned, and 
Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky)Anthony (Khrapovitsky), Metropolitan
“>Archimandrite Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who had previously headed (although only for a few months) St. Petersburg Theological Seminary, was appointed the new rector. The future Vladyka Anthony was twenty-seven at the time, and John Vasilievich was twenty-three. The new rector was very young and very active, brought some new and fresh elements, and was a shining example for his students. Later one of his former students recalled: “The fact that seemed legendary and incredible to us at that time—that the new rector, Archimandrite Anthony, came to the Academy entrusted to him with only a pilgrim’s staff and a suitcase filled with several books of spiritual content, having nothing else with him. This fact alone spoke loudly… that the new rector was bringing us an absolutely new direction and way of life.” And Archpriest (later Hieroschemamonk) Hieroschemamonk Sergei (Chetverikov)Sergei (Chetverikov), Hieroschemamonk”>Sergei Chetverikov called Vladyka Anthony “the heart of our academic world.”
The Moscow Theological Academy. The early twentieth century
We can safely assume that all these circumstances had a favorable effect on the development of the personalities of the Academy students, including John Vasilievich Popov. By the way, Vladyka Anthony would later become the founder and the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
But let’s return to John Vasilievich. After graduating from the Academy, he was not allowed to leave it, but was left as a teacher. This suggests that by the age of twenty-five he was an outstanding theologian and a valuable source of patristic knowledge. They did not want to lose him and saw him as a teacher at the leading Theological Academy of the Russian Empire. He was appointed to a teaching position a year later. After four years, in 1897, he received a master’s degree in theology. In the following year the thirty-one-year-old John Vasilievich became an extraordinary professor at the Department of Patristics. In those and subsequent years he wrote a lot, and his works were published. The young professor was very well versed in Western Christian teachings. He wrote of the Protestants: “They imitate prayer.” After visiting a Protestant gathering abroad, he wrote about its leader: “He just plays at being a pastor”, and about his flock: “And the others act insincerely, imitating his tastes.” Professor Popov’s contribution to Russian theology cannot be overestimated. Archpriest Mikhail Polsky wrote about John Vasilievich: “In Russia, patrology as a science was created by him [Fr. John Popov].”
John Vasilievich devoted many years of his life to his alma mater. He was an excellent teacher and a brilliant lecturer. Students listened to him with bated breath and with admiration. According to the memories of one of the students, they saw in him “deep concentration and inner strength”. According to the same student: “He tried to comprehend the meaning of the changes that were taking place and understand the reasons that had given rise to them in this particular form, trying to predict what would follow in the future.” And there was much to think seriously about; the October Revolution was sweeping across the country in a frenzy, crushing everything traditional and well-established on its way…
In 1917 John Vasilievich was elected member of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church from the Moscow Theological Academy. His prerogative was matters of higher spiritual education. In the early post-revolutionary years, he observed the decline in people’s living standards and their spiritual impoverishment. “According to official reports, I am observing a terrible increase in hunger, disease and destruction. The expectation of even greater disasters is a heavy weight on my soul,” John Vasilievich wrote to a friend. His high intelligence analyzed what was going on, but his soul suffered. It is difficult to say which hurt his delicate soul more—the general situation in the country, or his personal domestic troubles. Probably both. In a letter to the same friend John Vasilievich described the plight of his loved ones, the shortage of food prepared for the winter, the inability to buy anything to eat, difficulties with heating the house, since firewood was sold by whole trunks of fallen trees so that the buyers would chop them themselves, and “we can’t do it at all due to our lack of skill for this, while peasants do not want to be hired for money—they demand also food.”
Patriarch Tikhon and members of the Local Council of 1917–1918
The new reality was changing Professor Popov’s life, and in 1920 he took a second vegetable garden, complaining about the lack of a horse, without which they would not be given additional land; and it was hard to cultivate virgin soil, otherwise he would have taken “about an acre in the field to sow oats and fodder.” Dear readers, do you think that the professor of theology was now preoccupied with the routine, and his brilliant mind was wholly immersed in the beds of fodder? Not at all! He immediately wrote to a friend: “Of course, our life is full of disasters and does not bode well yet. But still, let’s trust in God. The soul finds peace when you commend yourself to His will.” And John Vasilievich perceived that trial in life as a lesson from which people had to come to a spiritual understanding of what was happening.
He was very saddened when the Moscow Theological Academy was closed. “I’m not worried about my personal fate: we will certainly all sort ourselves out somehow and earn our livings… It’s not my personal fate, but the death of an institution that I loved and served faithfully for twenty-six years that depresses me.” At the same time, he was seriously thinking about publishing a fundamental work that would include all his theological research over the years combined. However, there were no favorable conditions for that. John Vasilievich did not yet know that his idea was never destined to come to fruition.
In 1923, Professor Popov, with the participation of his student, Hieromonk Seraphim (Thievart). A Golgotha for TwoThese two holy martyrs saved the Russian Orthodox Church at that time—literally, not figuratively.
“>Monk Seraphim (Tyevar; a New Martyr; feast: December 6), was compiling a complete list of bishops who had remained faithful to the Orthodox Church and those who had gone into schism (with their surnames, places of service, etc.). The work was meaningful: a Council of all the Eastern Orthodox Churches was scheduled for 1925. John Vasilievich was blessed for this work by Patriarch Tikhon himself.
Then, in the same year, Professor Popov took part in another remarkable task: he helped transfer abroad Patriarch Tikhon’s decree appointing Metropolitan Platon (Rozhdestvensky) the administrator of the North American parishes. Both of the mentioned activities of John Popov qualified as the most blatant “counter-revolutionary activity”. On December 10, 1924, he was arrested. For John Vasilyevich the period of his confession began.
He was interrogated by Eugene Tuchkov himself, the head of the sixth secret department of the OGPU (the organization for investigating and combating counter-revolutionary activities)—a very high official in the new government. He was naturally very interested in those lists of bishops with their surnames.
John Vasilievich did not mention any names from the list, nor the names of those who had at least some connection with this list, nor the name of his student, Monk Seraphim. However, the tormentors already knew it perfectly well, with all the consequences for Monk Seraphim. Professor Popov complained about his allegedly poor memory in all clarifying questions: “I don’t remember exactly.” He was well aware that if he mentioned any names, arrests would be made based on his testimony. When asked about his attitude towards the Soviet government, he answered directly and clearly: “As a Christian I do not support anti-religious and immoral deviation in the modern order of things.”
The charge against John Vasilievich was formulated as follows: “He is charged with communicating with representatives of foreign States with the purpose of their intervening against the Soviet government, for which Popov gave them obviously false and wrong information about the persecution… of the Church and the bishops.”
The hierarchs who signed the “Memorandum of the Solovki Bishops.” 1925
Three years of camps. SLON (Solovki Special-Purpose Camp). The once-blessed Solovetsky Monastery was turned by the atheists into one of the most cruel and merciless labor camps. Monk Seraphim (Tyevar) was sent there as well. It is unthinkable, but in the harshest inhumane conditions, hard labor and everyday problems, John Vasilievich managed to write. He was the author of the text of the appeal of the Orthodox bishops to the government of the USSR, known as the “Memorandum of the Solovki Bishops “, which was signed by all the hierarchs who were serving their terms at the Solovki Camp at that time. It was the unmasking of the hypocritical “democracy” of the Bolshevik government, a blow to the “Living Church”, and a call for respect for personal freedom of faith. No wonder that right there, at Solovki, John Vasilievich was sentenced to three more years and sent to Surgut. On the Ob River, near Surgut, he lived in the same house with the exiled Bishop Onuphrius (Gagalyuk; New Hieromartyr; feast: June 1). In exile John Vasilievich wrote a work on St. Gregory of Nyssa.
The term ended on December 11, 1930. But John Vasilievich was forbidden to leave. According to the authorities, he was extremely dangerous and managed to “conduct subversive activities” even in the camps. At the end of December, a new case was initiated against him. He was released, then new cases against him were opened, he was released again, and so forth. Finally, in 1934, John Vasilievich returned from exile and took up his residence in Lyubertsy near Moscow.
His position during this period cannot be called passive. He actively communicated with like-minded people about Church issues. Among them were Archbishop Nikolai (Dobronravov; a New Hieromartyr; feast: December 10) and Metropolitan Anatoly (Grisyuk; a New Hieromartyr; feast: January 23). They usually met at the apartment of Archbishop Bartholomew (Remov), and it was he who, when arrested, disclosed Professor Popov’s name during the interrogations. John Vasilievich was arrested on February 21, 1935.
Now the investigator was interested not only and not so much in the names (they were already known) as in the content of the conversations. John Vasilievich replied during the interrogation that they had discussed everyday matters. The professor answered harsh provocative questions with categorical denials.
The investigator:
“Once again, I insist on truthful answers. I have information that these gatherings were by their nature meetings at which the situation of the Church in the USSR was discussed.”
Popov:
“I deny it.”
Five years of exile in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The place of exile was the village of Volokovskoye of the Pirovskoye district. John Vasilievich was sixty-eight at that time…
On November 28, 1935, he wrote a complaint to the NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs): “During my arrest on February 22 of this year, in my apartment… twelve silver tablespoons, eight silver teaspoons, one silver dessert-spoon, a golden pectoral cross, two savings books with a balance of five rubles on each, one Torgsin shop card with a balance of twelve rubles twenty kopecks and two white metal tablespoons were taken from me.” The deplorable truth of the fates of those convicted of “dissent”: During the search John Vasilievich was simply robbed…
John Vasilievich Popov in the NKVD prison in 1935 The professor was in exile for two years. Over time, he lived in a separate room in a shepherd’s house, where he was able to work on his research.
Everything changed with the publication of NKVD Order No. 00447 in July 1937. The massive, merciless eradication of the faithful children of the Mother Church who were still alive at that time was unleashed.
John Vasilievich was arrested on October 9, 1937. The charges were based on the testimonies of a stool-pigeon and the very shepherd in whose house the professor had lived. The former cited voluminous counter-revolutionary “quotes” from the professor: “He would say: ‘I believe the all talk about class struggle is absurd; there is no class struggle—it’s all nonsense. I have always been and remain an idealist, and in my opinion, it is not some economic and class struggle that drives history, but the spiritual interests of different nations. Religion, of course, plays a leading role in the development of history.’” The latter limited himself to a few words: “I remember Popov saying that ‘the Soviet government levies taxes from collective farmers in various payments, which was not the case before.’ He used to say many such counter-revolutionary things, but I can’t recollect everything now, and I didn’t understand a lot of it as I am hard of hearing.” Most likely he didn’t understand everything, but John Vasilievich’s fate was sealed anyway.
He was interrogated extensively again. Now the investigation was interested in his connections abroad: the names, addresses, from whom he had received these addresses, and also his statements against the new Constitution and the VKPB (the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks) policies. It is noteworthy that John Vasilievich was well informed about the political situation in the country.
Icon of the New Martyr John Popov From the interrogation protocol:
“The investigation has established that regarding the latest trial of eight Fascist spies you expressed regret for them and spoke about the instability and non-monolithic nature of the VKPB.”
“Indeed, there was talk about shooting these eight, but I did not feel sorry for them; as for the instability and non-monolithic nature of the party, this is true, since three factions have been formed in it: the Trotskyists, the Zinovievites, and the Bukharinites; it is clear that with such disagreements the party cannot be monolithic.”
John Vasilievich behaved with the utmost dignity throughout the investigation, courageously enduring all the difficult circumstances of his situation.
From the last interrogation protocol:
“Do you plead guilty to the charges against you?”
“I plead not guilty to the charges.”
He was so inconvenient for the government, his personality was so significant, and his authority in Orthodox circles was so high that he had to be dealt with once and for all, without any possibility of continuing his activities or spreading his influence. On January 17/30, 1938, John Vasilievich turned seventy-one. Apart from a short break, he had spent the last thirteen years of his earthly life in prisons, camps and exile. Six days later, on February 5, 1938, the ascetic and elder, great intellectual, and brilliant theologian of his age, Professor John Popov was sentenced to death by firing squad. Professor John Vasilievich Popov was executed on February 8, 1938, on the eve of the feast of his Heavenly patron, St. John Chrysostom.
Source: Orthodox Christianity
