Crucea.ro

via Vladimir Moss

Bishop Nectarius, in the world Nestor Konstantinovich Trezvinsky, was born
in 1889 in the family of a priest in the village of Yatsek in
Vasilkovsky uyezd, Kiev province. At the age of three he was orphaned, and was
cared for by Protopriest Vishinsky of the local church, who later handed the boy
over to his son-in-law, the priest Trezvinsky, from whom Nestor received
his surname.
In 1901 Nestor entered the Kiev theological seminary, graduating in 1908.
Then he served as a novice in a monastery, and then in the church of the
village of Yatsek. In 1911 he entered in the Kiev Theological Academy,
graduating in 1915 (according to another source, 1917). In 1912 (according to
another source, 1914) he was tonsured into the mantia in the Kiev Caves
Lavra with the name of Nectarius. In the autumn of 1915 he joined the army as
the priest of the First Turkestan rifle regiment.
On December 13, 1917 Fr. Nectarius was ordained to the priesthood,
serving in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, and was raised to rank of archimandrite
in 1918. In 1919, because of a false accusation he was imprisoned in the
“Crosses” prison. From 1920 to 1921 he was rector of the cathedral in Yamburg.
On September 8, 1921 he was arrested in connection with “the affair of the
Alexander Nevsky Lavra”, and a month later was sentenced to one year of
hard labour. In January, 1922 he was amnestied and sent to the Kiev-Caves
Lavra, where he remained in retirement until 1923. (According to another
source, he returned to Petrograd in the autumn of 1922.) In February, 1924
Bishop Benedict appointed him dean of the monasteries and podvoryes of Petrograd.
According to one source, on June 3/16, 1924 Patriarch Tikhon consecrated
him Bishop of Vitebsk. But according to another, he was made Bishop of
Velizhsk, a vicariate of the Polotsk diocese, and temporary administrator of
the Polotsk-Vitebsk diocese until 1925. However, the authorities extracted
from him a promise not to leave Petrograd, so he could not visit his see. In
December, 1924 he was appointed bishop of Yaransk, a vicariate of the Vyatka
diocese. At that time Yaransk was in the hands of the renovationist
heretics. However, the faithful children of the Orthodox Church sent a member
of the parish council of the Dormition church, Y.A. Chernyshev, to Patriarch
Tikhon to ask him to give them their own bishop, and he sent them Bishop
Nectarius.

Yaransk already had its new martyrs. In the early years of the revolution
a group of clergy had been shot and buried in Yaransk cemetery. In the same
grave they buried two brothers, one of whom was called Vasya, from Kiknur
who had been caught for refusing to join the reds and had joined the whites.

Vladyka Nectarius immediately entered into an uncompromising battle with
the renovationists. Soon the cathedral church of the Holy Trinity joined the
Orthodox Church. The bishop was helped in this successful struggle by
Protopriest Sergius Znamensky, the superior of the cathedral, the warden Ivan
Vasilyevich Okhotnikov, and the parishioners Nicholas Ivanovich Starodumov
and the brothers Michael and James Chernyshev. Thus on February 27, 1925
Protopriest Sergius reported to Patriarch Tikhon that “now, under the
leadership of Bishop Nectarius, the church is completely Orthodox”. He
mentioned that the four laymen had been sent to prison. The patriarch replied on March
14, expressing his thanks and invoking the blessing of God.
Not content with this triumph in the city, Vladyka Nectarius went out into
the neighbouring villages and submitted the renovationist churches to his
authority. “Now the clergy is persecuted,” he preached, “and the time of
the Antichrist has arrived. Soviet power must offer repentance, stop the
repressions and radically change its politics towards the Church.”
In 1925, having received an invitation to take part in the preparation of
a renovationist council, he replied: “I reject the God-hated renovationist
movement and anathematise it. I anathematise the God-hated robber so-called
council of 1923 which took place in Moscow, with all its decrees. I
promise to have no canonical communion with any of those who have attached
themselves to this renovationist deception. Orthodox citizens of Vyatka! The
wolf in sheep’s clothing, the renovationist archbishop Joseph has addressed
the believers… Be watchful, Orthodox, the path you tread is dangerous. The
days are evil…”
In the same epistle Bishop Nectarius called the renovationist clergy
graceless and their sacraments powerless, their eucharist invalid (simple bread
and wine), and called on the people not to go to the renovationist council,
and therefore not to take part in their congress.
From January, 1925 Vladyka Nectarius was looking after more than 40
parishes of the True Orthodox Christians. In May he went to seek the advice of
the elder, Hieromonk Matthew, who was living in the settlement of Yershovo
some 35 versts from the city.
Hieromonk Matthew, in the world Metrophanes Kuzmich Shvetsov, came from
the family of a Vyatka cobbler, and became the spiritual son of the
well-known Schema-Hieromonk Stefan (Kurteyev), who convinced him in 1891 to
accept monastic tonsure in the Vyatka Alexander Nevsky monastery. However, Fr.
Matthew spent most of his life in the Prorochitskaya monastery, from its
founding in 1899 to its closure in 1921, working as treasurer, and assistant to
the abbot, and dean, and spiritual father, and cell-attendant. He was
granted the gifts of healing and prophecy, and attracted a large number of
people from far and near. From 1921 he settled in Yershovo, where he became the
centre around which the True Orthodox gathered. He died on May 27, 1927,
and for seventy years thereafter people have gone to his grave in the
cemetery of Yaransk to seek healing for spiritual and bodily infirmities. The
authorities used to drive people from his grave, saying: “Why did you come to
him? Go to the church, put some candles there… You shouldn’t sing here;
he was an enemy of Soviet power; the Church does not recognize him, nor
honour him, the priests don’t come here… But you have come – that means
that you, too, are an enemy of Soviet power!”
Vladyka Nectarius went up to Fr. Matthew’s little house and said: “Lord
Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us” at the door. “Amen” came the
reply, as if he had been long expected. The door opened, and there was Fr.
Matthew dressed in the full monastic garb. After blessing him, Vladyka went up
to the icons, and made the sign of the cross, while Fr. Matthew chanted
softly: “Thy martyrs, O Lord, have acquired unfading crowns in their
sufferings…” Vladyka shuddered at hearing the troparion to the martyrs. He
did not think that he would receive the answer to his question so quickly from the elder.
On May 25, 1925 the GPU arrested Vladyka “for conducting anti-Soviet
agitation”, and on November 13 he was sentenced to three years on Solovki.
There he worked as a fisherman and janitor, and took part in the secret meeting
of imprisoned hierarchs that took place in the food warehouse of the
monastery Kremlin on May 25 / June 7, 1926, at which the epistle of the Solovki
bishops was composed.
(According to one source, Vladyka was arrested in 1923, and between 1923
and 1926 was on Solovki. He was arrested again in 1926 or 1927. From 1927 to
1928, according to another source, he ruled the Kursk diocese while being
temporarily in charge of the Kirov diocese.)
Vladyka formally broke communion with Metropolitan Sergius on February 6,
1928 (according to another source, February 8, and according to a third -
on February 19 / March 4), and on April 4 joined the Josephites, being
received by them through a prosphora which Archbishop Demetrius (Lubimov) sent
him. On Solovki he served with the other Catacomb Bishops Victor of Glazov,
Hilarion of Porech and Maximus of Serpukhov, and later was particularly
closely linked with Bishop Victor. On April 25, 1928 he wrote: “After prayer
and much thought I have broken ecclesiastical communion with Metropolitan
Sergius because he has entered into a bloc with the Antichrist, has violated
the church canons and has permitted faintheartedness and casuistry that is
equivalent to apostasy from Christ…. It is shameful and not without danger
for the eternal salvation of every Orthodox believer to follow such a
leader as M. Sergius, who has become slippery, going on a very unreliable
path.”
Again, in a letter to his flock dated January 8, 1929 he wrote: “[He is]
an apostate who has fallen away from the Church of Christ like a rotten
limb”.
In the course of 1928, according to one (dubious) source, he signed the
acts of the so-called “Nomadic Council” of the Catacomb Church. Towards
the end of 1928 he was placed under ban by Metropolitan Sergius, but refused
to accept its validity. In October, 1930 he was mentioned as being under ban.
On November 20, 1928 he was released (the resolution was dated May 18,
1928), but not allowed to live in the major cities and Vyatka for three
years. Following the advice of Bishop Victor, he went to Kazan. On settling in
Kazan, Vladyka Nectarius was given the names of the anti-sergianists Fr.
Nicholas Troitsky and Professor Victor Ivanovich Nesmelov. However, both
these confessors were under surveillance, so Vladyka stayed in the Kozya
Sloboda suburb of Kazan, at 22 Oktyabrskaya street. Here he became close to a
group of exiles who were close to Archbishop Andrew of Ufa: the priest Fr.
Arcadius Volokitin; the laywoman Eugenia Antipina and her daughter Olga
Antipina, who had been condemned in 1925 for spreading the epistles of
Archbishop Andrew and helping the imprisoned clergy with food and other
articles; and Angelina Solovyeva, who had been condemned for the same “crime” in 1925.
Also close to him were some nuns of the closed Raithu monastery and the
nuns of the closed monastery of the Kazan icon: Maria (Preobrazhenskaya),
Stepanida (Makarova), Anna (Baranova), Agatha (Lipina), Maria (Veryasova),
Maria (Yegorova); and also Anna (Bulanova), Euphrosyne (Vikurova), Eudocia
(Sergina), Praskovya (Stepanova), Theodosia (Romanova), Anna (Yegorova),
Zinaida (Lykova) and E. Lagutina.
As soon as Vladyka arrived in Kazan, he received a letter from Archbishop
Demetrius of Gdov, asking whether Vladyka had left the Josephite Church.
Vladyka replied by telegram that no, he remained in unity with them.
While living in Kazan, Vladyka Nectarius sometimes went into sergianist
churches, but did not take part in the service and even had no communication
with the priests, but only kissed the icons and listened to the chanting.
Once, when the bishop was standing in one of those churches, the deacon, who
was censing, began to cense Vladyka three times in accordance with his
hierarchical rank. However, Bishop Nectarius turned away from him and did not
give him his hierarchical blessing. There was another incident at this
time: a person died, and the relatives came to Vladyka and asked him to perform
the burial. The bishop asked: “To what church did the deceased go?” It
turned out that he went to the sergianist church. Then Vladyka said: “Well,
let them bury him.”
The people also preserved the memory of Fr. Theodore from the village of
Shcherbash. He was arrested together with a nun. When he had been shot and
his body was just lying there, the prison guard said: “I don’t know who he
is, but every night a man in white comes down and censes him…”
Among the True Orthodox Christians of Vyatka province, particular mention
should be made of Abbess Apollinaria and Archimandrite Arsenius Arzamassky.
Matushka was the abbess of a monastery situated 12 kilometres from
Konoplya, where there were 33 houses and a chapel. More and more young girls
were intending to serve God there, so the Bolsheviks destroyed it. The monastery
was served by Archimandrite Arsenius. He had not wanted to marry, but his
parents forced him; and when his wife bore a child and died, he thanked God
for freeing him from those bonds… Fr. Arsenius was once travelling in a
train with some Bolsheviks. One of them said to him: “Pope, you rob people,
what kind of God can you have…” “How can you say there is no God –
where did you come from, then?” objected Fr. Arsenius. “Prove to me that God
exists. Pour some coals in your skirt – then I’ll believe that God
exists.” “Okay,” said Fr. Arsenius. And as he crossed himself the soldier poured some
coals from the stove into the folds of his ryasa. The coals were
immediately quenched, and did not burn the ryasa…
After the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, Fr. Arsenius went round the
churches which remained faithful to Orthodoxy, such as Chernushka and Lom.
He died from a disease of the throat. He left Matushka S.’s mother a
basket of prosphoras: “Look, Maria, keep the holy things. There will be many
churches, but the Truth is one.” That is, it was forbidden to receive
communion in those churches…
Matushka Apollinaria settled next to Hieromonk Matthew after the
destruction of her monastery. Her three brothers came and built two houses –
one for matushka, and one for Fr. Matthew. With the blessing of Fr. Arsenius she
distributed the Holy Gifts. She was not often in her little house because
she was always on the move. The police would come and find a lock on the
doors. When the nuns were arrested, she prayed Psalm 90 so that the Lord would
preserve her from prison. And He did – Matushka Apollinaria lived until old
age, dying on Radonitsa, 1958. She remained an unyielding opponent of
Sergianism until her death.
The GPU had planted an agent in Vladyka Nectarius’ circle, and he reported
that Vladyka had been ordaining priests and deacons whom he sent to the
Yaransk and Chuvash diocese, and that he was serving together with Fr.
Arcadius Volokitin, who had set up a secret church in his house. The two of
them “on the one hand,.. are establishing links with exiles in Narymsk region,
Kazakhstan, Turukhan region, etc., and on the other hand, with the Vyatka
and Ufa provinces and with the neighbouring republics of the culturally
backward national minorities.” Bishop Nectarius received letters from exiled
bishops and priests, and these were distributed through the monks and nuns of
the closed monasteries to the Vyatka and Ufa diocese, to the Chuvash
republic and the Mari region. “Pilgrimages to Bishop Nectarius,” said the
informer, “have begun from Chuvashia and Mari, and in general from the
culturally backward national minorities.”
On August 30, 1930 (according to another source, in April) Vladyka
Nectarius, Fr. Arcadius, and Eugenia and Olga Antipina and others were arrested
in Tataria in connection with the affair of the counter-revolutionary
organization, “The True Orthodox Church”, which supposedly existed in Tataria
and the southern parts of Kirov region. Later came the arrests of Fr. Nicholas
Galakhov, his father, Fr. James Galakhov, and Fr. Eulampius. Bishop
Nectarius, Fr. Nicholas Troitsky and Professor Nicholas Petrov (who were
arrested the next day), together with the retired Bishop Ioasaph (Udalov), one of
Metropolitan Cyril’s closest associates, were imprisoned in the OGPU’s
isolator in the Tatar republic, while the rest were placed in the Kazan transit
house of prisoners.
Vladyka did not conceal his contacts with the Josephites, but he was
careful to mention the names only of people who had already been shot or were
in prison or exile. On September 1, 1930 he said during interrogation: “I do
not know why I have been arrested, but I think that I have been arrested
as a counter-revolutionary. Prayer takes place in my flat-cell on Sundays
and the twelve major feasts; among the worshippers with me are people from
the Yaransk diocese, parishes which do not recognise Metropolitan Sergius and
his Synod. I am a true supporter of Patriarch Tikhon and strive to be
such, and am ready to die for that… Among the regular worshippers there are
also inhabitants of Kazan, but I cannot say who they are or give their
names, since I consider that to be betrayal…”
Further interrogations took place on June 5, June 12 and July 20, 1931.
On January 26, 1932 Vladyka Nectarius was sentenced to ten years in the
Solovki concentration camps. He was the only one of the 33 other clergy to
receive ten years; the others were sentenced to three years in
corrective-labour camps. On Solovki he continued to participate in services of
the Josephite Catacomb Church. In 1935 he was transferred to the Prorvinsky
corrective-labour camp in Western Kazakhstan. (From 1935 to 1937, however,
according to one source, he was serving secretly in Kazan.)
Once the Catacomb Christian Elisha Ilyich visited Vladyka on Solovki. The
policeman replied that that it was impossible that day – but the next day
he could see him. And he asked: “Who is he to you?” “A distant relative.”

“And what kind of person is he?” “Like all the rest – an ordinary
person.”
“No – he’s not like everyone else.” “In what way he is not like the
others?” “Well: when Trezvinsky [Vladyka Nectarius’ surname] goes to
catch fish they bring back a huge catch. And when Trezvinsky doesn’t go, they come
back with empty boats.” The fishing artel used to ask Vladyka: “We don’t
force you to catch fish, Vladyka, just come out to sea with us…”
The next day they were able to meet. Vladyka Nectarius asked about all the
priests: who had joined the sergianists, who had not, who had remained
firm in Orthodoxy. He gave Elisha Ilyich many crosses to distribute to
everyone, as if to remind his children about the meaning of the Christian
life…
Vladyka told Elisha Ilyich that when he had been imprisoned they had begun
to force him to sign the sergianist declaration, but he had refused. “Well
then,” they said, “that’s ten years for refusing.” “Let me die here,
but I won’t go to Sergius,” replied the hierarch. “And we won’t let you out
until you rot in prison.” A little later, Matushka S. remembers that they
received the following letter written on one side of a piece of paper: “
Vladyka Nectarius is writing to you. I am sending you God’s blessing and am
praying for you. Every morning and every evening I bless my diocese. A rare
guest, Elisha Ilyich from the village of Votchina, has told me about
everything that is happening in my diocese, who has fallen away into
Sergianism, and who has remained firm in Orthodoxy. I beseech you not to go to the
sergianist church. Pray at home in front of the icons. Receive communion if
only twice a year only from a true pastor…”
Vladyka Nectarius considered Christianity and Socialism to be
irreconcilable, and during his interrogation he did not hide his negative
attitude to Soviet power: “The attitude of the Church, that is, the clergy and
believers, must, in the light of my views with regard to Soviet power, be such
as can be adopted with regard to the kingdom of Satan, that is, hostile and
unfriendly. The attitude of the authorities to the Church cannot be changed, so
in conversations with believers I have always expressed myself in favour
of the necessity of getting rid of Soviet power.”
He wrote the following letter to his flock from exile in about 1933:
“Beloved! I want to write a few lines to you for your general edification and
confirmation in Orthodoxy.
“Five years ago in the Yaransk region several Orthodox communities
separated from Metropolitan Sergius, many clergy and laity. Everyone was
offered the opportunity to triumph over sergianism. But now, not seeing success in
this protracted spiritual battle, they are disappointed and begin to have
doubts about the truth and salutoriness of their departure from Metropolitan
Sergius and the bishops and clergy who think like him. May your and our
hearts not be troubled! The basis of our departure from Metropolitan Sergius
was not some trivial caprice or wounded self-love, but a decisive protest
against the criminal time-serving of Metropolitan Sergius and his eparchs in
relation to Soviet power, his allowing the GPU to unceremoniously interfere
in the inner life of the Church of Christ. This interference of foreign
elements in the appointment of bishops to sees and in other spheres of
church life cannot be justified by the church canons and the rule of the Holy
Fathers, the more so in that with us the Church is separated from the state.
“Our struggle with Metropolitan Sergius, this champion of Bolshevik
caesaropapism, is a very honourable struggle – it is a struggle for the Truth
of Christ God, for the Holy Orthodox Church, which has been betrayed for
thirty pieces of silver to humiliation, destruction and liquidation. We are
frightened, not of Metropolitan Sergius and those who share his views and his
successors, but of those who support him by brute force. If the punitive
forces of the GPU were not on his side, those who think like him and his
successors would have been defeated long ago. This was confirmed by the
denunciations of secret agents of the GPU, who said that the people would have
left him as a turncoat and traitor of the Church of Christ.
“Our new tragedy consists in the fact that the bishops who have warred
against Metropolitan Sergius have found themselves under the heel of the GPU.
Thus Metropolitans Peter of Krutitsa and Cyril of Kazan have been banished
to the distant tundra. Joseph of Petrograd has been imprisoned amidst the
sands of [Central] Asia. Archbishop Demetrius is in the very strict
Yaroslavl isolator. Vladyka Victor is somewhere in the northern regions. Your
humble servant was confined for ten years in the concentration camps, while
Bishops Hierotheus, Alexis and Maximus were shot. A similar fate, that is, a
lengthy term of imprisonment in concentration camps and exile, awaited many
of the clergy and laity who decided to speak out against Metropolitan
Sergius and his like-minded minions.
“As early as my own break with Metropolitan Sergius, on February 6, 1928,
I foresaw that although our struggle for the Truth of Christ was holy, it
would be weak and without success. From the history of the Church we see
that all the fighters for the Truth of Christ perished in the struggle and
that the work of God for which they struggled triumphed only after their
death. That is what will happen in our struggle with sergianism. The people has
become indifferent and lukewarm towards church questions, while the clergy
- in its greater part, that is – have become simply fulfillers of the rites
whose only concern is to have enough to eat and live quietly. Meanwhile
they will not balk at force or any other methods however immoral, against us,
the opponents of sergianism, for example: denunciations, false rumours,
making brawlers tipsy at parish meetings, etc. Thus Metropolitan Sergius
published a slander against me, saying that I had ordained a bigamist to the
priesthood, while I would never think or dream of doing such a thing.
Although our struggle is holy and just, we are weak. I personally have no hopes
of being released, I shall most likely perish in the camps; and I comfort
myself with the promise of Christ: ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for
righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.’ It is not easy
to suffer, but there is no way out, there can be no other choice. Don’t you
waver either, beloved! For you, too, ‘to live is Christ, and to die is
gain’. ‘What are we to do? How are we to live?’ the zealots of Orthodoxy ask me,
those who have been deprived of their pastors and whose sensitive
conscience will not allow them to pray in sergianist churches. Their souls’
suffering is completely comprehensible. To live without church prayer is a
great
woe for Orthodox believers. But, you know, today there are many towns and
villages where there are no churches, and where there are some, they are
renovationist or sergianist. Unite into small groups and pray at home. Sing
church songs. Read the Word of God, give alms, bury the dead, as far as
possible without sergianist priests. Receive the Holy Mysteries from true
pastors; with the help of God, you will find them. Now, in the words of the
holy
Apocalypse-Revelation of John the Theologian, the Church has departed into
the wilderness, that is, she has hidden in secret places; the situation is
such that believers are compelled to gather together for church prayer in
hidden, secret places. Thus was it in the times of martyrdom, of iconoclasm
and of all the heresies that have disturbed the Church in Greece, in the
East, when there was a persecution against the supporters of Divine Truth,
while our time is that of the preparation for the Antichrist and his kingdom.
Satan, the enemy of God had armed himself against the Church of Christ,
her children, her members, who have remained faithful to the testament of
Christ and the Holy Fathers.
“‘Simon, Simon! Satan has sought to winnow you like wheat,’ said Jesus
Christ to His disciples. Go after Me along the path of sufferings! I have
prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail.’ In the same way, you,
too, brethren, pray for yourselves and for me, that our faith may not cool,
and that the feeling of burning religious inspiration may not be quenched. If
it does, then woe to us! The holy Apocalypse of John the Theologian
declares that the Church [sic. correction: the Lord?] will then vomit us up as
useless spittle from His Divine lips, that is, from the saving depths of His
Church, the society of salvation. And what could be worse than that?!
“Watch and pray that you do not fall into the abyss, into temptation!
Amen.”
“I hope and believe,” he said, “that this ecclesiastical Nizhny fair
under the neo-renovationist flag will suffer complete defeat and the Orthodox
believers will all leave this sad church adventure invented in order to
destroy and mock the Church of Christ, which is the pillar and ground of the
Truth.”
On September 8, 1937 Vladyka Nectarius was sentenced to be shot by a
troika of the UNKVD of the West Kazakhstan region. The sentence was carried
out in the Caspian town of Guriev (according to one source, on the same day).