Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, as well as with the day of the first new-martyr of the Russian Church of the 20th century, the priest-martyr John Kochurov!

The righteous John was born into the family of a priest in 1971. He studied well and after finishing his studies at the St Petersburg Spiritual Academy, was ordained a priest and assigned, according to his own wishes, to serve in the North American Diocese of Russian Orthodox Church. On this side of Atlantic Ocean he spent twelve years, showing himself to be a kind, industrious worker with fine pastoral and administrative talents. Although he had many merits, let’s focus on just a few. He built the wonderful Holy Trinity Church in Chicago, where he was the rector, for his large, but poor parish of Russian and Ukrainian workers. Many of these parishioners were immigrants: Ukrainians, Carpatho-Russians, as well as Rusyns (i. e. Uniates from the Austro-Hungarian Empire that already here, in North America, returned to the Orthodox Church. Fr. John himself accepted many of them into the Orthodox Church. The saint was also a close associate of Bishop Tikhon in the administration of the enormous, poor, multi-ethnic diocese. For his zealous endeavours he was awarded the gold pectoral cross as well as the rank of archpriest.

In 1907, Archpriest John and his large family returned to Russia, where he was assigned as teacher of ‘Law of God’ for the boys’ as well as girls’ high-schools in Narva. He served there until 1916, when he was assigned as one of the parish priests to the St. Catherine’s Cathedral in Tsarskoe Selo. One could say that finally, Fr. John had received a ‘good’ assignment: a good, established parish with a large and pious congregation, comfortable housing, a good salary, etc. This happiness was not to last for long.

At the end of October 1917 (old style), the October Revolution reached Tsarskoe Selo. The Cossack soldiers, who supported the Provisional Government, were forced out of the city by soldiers from the capital. Before this, the citizens of the town were very distressed and, naturally, many of them came to the church to find some kind of cansolation. The clergy of St. Catherine’s Cathedral served a prayer service and lead a procession for the ending of civil strife. The next day, all of the clergy of the cathedral were arrested by the new rulers under the pretext that they were praying for the victory of the Cossacks. During this whole process, Fr. John was lead or dragged out of the city by a mob, beaten, and shot.

This murder shook the whole Russian Church. The church press, the local bishop, the diocesan administration, the patriarch and the Council of the Russian Church, then meeting in Moscow, reacted to it. In the first days after his death, Father John was already being called a martyr.

The Priest-Martyr John, although we may not venerate him all that much, has a lot in common with us. Like many of us, he lived in two different worlds – in the West, but also in Russia. How many of us, while living here, at the same time think about Russia, or Ukraine, or Bulgaria, or some other country and worry about it. All of our parish cares and troubles were completely familiar to Fr. John while he served in Chicago. That desire to find a ‘good’ place to calmly live and raise a family is probably close to everyone’s heart as well. The Lord God judged that this good and kind man, a talented priest, should live in difficult times and lose his life to a pointless death at the hands of evil men. In such a way, he entered the Kingdom of Heaven, was crowned with an eternal crown, and became for us the first of the Russian New-Martyrs. Today let’s pray to him that he intercede before the Throne of the Merciful God for us, for our families and children, and for our parish, as well as for all our countries that they all may live in peace amongst each other.

priest Alexis