On the road leading from Rybinsk to Yaroslavl, along the left bank of the Volga, twenty-five kilometers from Rybinsk, lies the locality of Shashkovo. Once upon a time, these were the estates of noble families of the Russian state—the Tishinins, Kozhins, Klimentievs, Telyakovskys, Ratkov-Rozhnovs, and others. At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, this was a most popular place for summer recreation among residents of the capital. The estate “Otradnoe“ in Shashkovo belonged to the director of the Imperial Theaters, V. A. Telyakovsky. He greatly loved his estate and lived there for long periods during the summer. Here, as guests of Vladimir Arkadievich, came the great Shalyapin, the artists K. Korovin and A. Golovin, and L. Sobinov. In Soviet times, the settlement had a leading breeding farm in the country for Romanov sheep—the XXVI Party Congress Breeding Plant, a permanent participant at the agricultural exhibition center in Moscow, and a highly profitable state farm. The settlement is quite large by today’s standards. There is a school, a kindergarten, a post office, stores, a paramedic station, and apartment buildings. But the air is filled with a sense of decline, as if to say that the village’s heyday is long gone. In the center of the settlement stands the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross, built in 1775, with an elegant bell tower and a cemetery around it.
Church of the Exaltation of the Cross in Shashkovo (1775). Photo: pravoslavie.ru.
Now ruined and encased in construction scaffolding, it humbly awaits its “resurrection.“ But the restoration is proceeding very slowly, for the usual reason in such matters—lack of funds.
Since 2020, I have been entrusted with restoring this church, and I have been doing so to the best of my ability up to the present day.
Valeria Nikolaevna Tochalova. Photo: pravoslavie.ru. In the center of the settlement, off the asphalt road, stands a dilapidated little house of the barrack type for several families. Some of the apartments in the house are empty. And in one little apartment, with a rotting porch, lives an elderly teacher, Valeria Nikolaevna, together with her daughter. We met when I was asked to confess and commune several local grandmothers at home, among whom was Valeria Nikolaevna.
The teacher told me that she was born in 1931, the granddaughter of the repressed priest, Dimitry Ignatievich Popov. She showed me her archive, which she had inherited from her grandfather. These were wonderfully preserved pre-revolutionary photographs of priests and hierarchs. From my hostess’s story, it became known that her grandfather was a priest in the Zaporozhye region in the village of Malaya Belozyorka. In 1934, their family—Fr. Dimitry, Matushka Alexandra Mikhailovna (nee Apostolova, grandmother of Valeria Nikolaevna), their daughter Anna (mother of Valeria Nikolaevna), and Valeria Nikolaevna herself, at that time a very small girl—moved to the Yaroslavl region to the village of Ponizye, where the priest served in the local church. In 1937, their grandfather was summoned to Yaroslavl, to the NKVD, and they never saw him again. They knew, from rare messages from outsiders, that Fr. Dimitry had been arrested, was in a camp, and later came the sorrowful news of their grandfather’s death. After the arrest of her loved one—the head of the family—the remaining household members fully drank the bitter cup of the “family of an enemy of the people.“ Valeria Nikolaevna could say nothing more, since nothing from their past life was recalled in the family.
The grandmother and mother of our heroine said nothing and never told her anything until their very death. Due to harassment by their fellow villagers, the family moved to the Rybinsk district during the war.
The photo archive of V. N. Tochalova. Photo: pravoslavie.ru.
Valeria Nikolaevna and her daughter Nadezhda, who now live together, asked for help in learning about the fate of Fr. Dimitry. I enthusiastically agreed to help them. We made a request to the UFSB for the Yaroslavl region. From there came a response that the case of D. I. Popov is in the archives of the city of Kostroma, since the village of Ponizye—the place of residence of the family at the time of arrest—now belongs to the Kostroma region. We wrote a request to this archive, and we were invited to familiarize ourselves with the case materials. The criminal case lifted the veil of secrecy over the personality of Fr. Dimitry.
From the materials of the criminal case, it followed that Archpriest Dimitry Ignatievich Popov, priest of the village of Ponizye in the Antropovsky district, came from the Dnepropetrovsk region, the village of Malaya Belozyorka. In 1902–1904, he served in the Russian mission in New York as a psalmist.
Alexandra Mikhailovna and Dimitry Ignatievich Popov (photo from the archive of V. N. Tochalova). Particular guilt was attributed to his close acquaintance with Patriarch Tikhon and with the then-repressed Archbishop Nikodim of Kostroma (Krotkov)—Hieromartyr Nikodim, who “dragged him here“—as well as the fact that he had connections abroad through his brother-priest, who had lived in Los Angeles and died in 1935. In the materials of the criminal case, Fr. Dimitry is characterized as hostile to Soviet power and having monarchical views. He was accused of obstructing collective farm work, propagating religiosity among children, and “corrupting“ collective farm women by encouraging them to join the sisterhood at the church of the village of Ponizye. However, the criminal case reveals the firm faith, nobility, and spiritual beauty of this extraordinary priest. For example, he repeatedly expressed the opinion that religion does not contradict science. He had a firm conviction that science would come to prove the existence of God. Another interesting point in the criminal case: Among believers in 1937, the approach and even the inevitability of the coming war is clearly felt. One of the witnesses testified that Fr. Dimitry told him: “Many flies—this means there will be war.” Another witness also testified that D. I. Popov spoke to her about the coming war. Testimonies against Fr. Dimitry were given by three priests. He was arrested on November eleven, 1937. He fully admitted his guilt in counter-revolutionary activity, despite the absurdity of the charges brought. For what reasons—it is unclear, but apparently there were reasons. Judging by the standardized structure and haste of the criminal case, it was completely fabricated. On the twelfth of November, the case was completed, and on the fourteenth of November, the troika of the UNKVD for the Yaroslavl region passed sentence—ten years in a corrective labor camp. On the feast of the Circumcision of the Lord, the thirteenth of January, 1940, the priest died in the Ivdel camp of the Sverdlovsk region.
According to the recollections of Valeria Nikolaevna, after her grandfather’s arrest, their family was subjected to persecution as a family of a “disenfranchised” person. She herself endured much from teachers and children as the granddaughter of an “enemy of the people.” Such was the information we obtained from the criminal case.
The ruins of the Church of Panteleimon in the village of Malaya Belozyorka, Zaporozhye region, where Fr. Dimitry served for more than twenty years. Later, I contacted the priest Fr. John from the village of Malaya Belozyorka in the Zaporozhye region (now part of Russia). This is the village where Fr. Dimitry served for more than twenty-five years and where he is remembered fondly. Here is what was learned from his homeland. Fr. Dimitry was the rector of the Church of the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon in the village of Malaya Belozyorka (until 1923, Velikaya Belozyorka) approximately from the 1905–1910s. The family of Valeria Nikolaevna has a photograph of Fr. Dimitry in a cassock with matushka from 1910, with the inscription “V. Belozyorka.“ In Fr. Dimitry’s family, two children grew up—a son Mikhail and a daughter Anna. In the early 1930s, in the entire huge Dnepropetrovsk region (modern Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye regions), only eight churches remained active, including the Church of St. Panteleimon in M. Belozyorka. A sisterhood operated at the church—girls sang in the choir and performed other obediences in the church. The priest is remembered as a person of high spiritual life. For example, a resident of the village, Tatiana, told a story about her relative, a hermit nun, who communicated with no one except a small circle of people. Her spiritual father was Fr. Dimitry. Now the grave of this elderess-ascetic is highly venerated in the village. During the time of anti-religious propaganda, a tragedy occurred in the priest’s family. His eldest son Mikhail publicly renounced his father, a priest, in order to be able to enter an institute. His subsequent fate remains unknown. In 1933, drought and crop failure occurred in southern Ukraine. A famine began. Local Komsomol members arranged a provocation against the priest. At night they hid a bag of grain under a haystack in the priest’s yard, and in the morning they came to search and “found” the hidden sack. This served as a pretext for expelling the priest’s family from the village. Thus, Fr. Dimitry’s family ended up in the Yaroslavl region. He was received into the diocese by Archbishop Nikodim, who was close to Fr. Dimitry, as one of the priests said in his testimony—not without envy. The hierarch and the priest became close during Archbishop Nikodim’s tenure on the Tavrian cathedra. In addition, Fr. Dimitry was in close relations with Archbishop Alexei (Molchanov; 1853–1914), as evidenced by two photographs with dedicatory inscriptions preserved in the family archive. In the new place, the family quickly settled and made themselves at home, largely thanks to the industriousness of the priest and his matushka. As Valeria Nikolaevna recalls, in the house they made many preparations for winter—including preserving both mushrooms and berries. Matushka’s and Fr. Dimitry’s daughter are buried in the village of Khopylevo in the Rybinsk district. Matushka Alexandra Mikhailovna was a pioneer in growing tomatoes in the area.
The Church of the Resurrection in the village of Ponizye (now Kostroma region). The place of Fr. Dimitry’s service until the moment of his arrest.
In the personal file from 1892 of the eldest of the Popov brothers—Mitrofan, a student at the Moscow Theological Academy—which we found in fund 229 of the Central State Archive of Moscow, the Popov family is mentioned. The head of the family—Archpriest Ignaty Yakovlevich Popov, a native of the Kursk province, son of a deacon—graduated from the Kursk Theological Seminary in 1867, second class. In 1867, he was accepted into the Kherson diocese, from 1868 he served as protodeacon of the Odessa Cathedral. He was a singing teacher at the Odessa Theological School, and builder and rector of the Michael-Archangel Church in Moldavanka. As of 1891, the Popov family consisted of Matushka Alexandra Alekseevna—thirty-nine years old, Mitrofan—twenty-one years old, Yakov—eighteen years old, Peter—sixteen years old, Dmitry—eight years old, Elizabeth—five years old, and son Tikhon. Ignaty Yakovlevich himself turned fifty-one that year.
Fr. Peter Popov. Further, I wanted to find information about his brother who lived in the USA. First, I tried to find it through church structures in the USA. I wrote to the Western American Diocese, but unsuccessfully. Then, independently and with the help of Russian people living in America, I gradually began to find information. Here is what I learned about the elder brother of Fr. Dimitry—Peter Popov.
Peter Ignatievich Popov was born on June nine, 1875. In 1895, he completed the course at the Odessa Seminary, second class. In the same year, he went to the USA. That he had lived in America since 1895 is reported by the Pravoslavny Vestnik in 1923 in an article congratulating Fr. Peter on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his service in the holy rank. In the second issue of the Pravoslavny Vestnik of America dated September fifteen, 1896, it is reported that His Grace Nicholas departed on a journey through American parishes. On this trip, he was accompanied only by the psalmist Dmitry Popov.
Photograph of Bishop Nicholas (Ziorov) with a dedicatory inscription “To the ever-memorable relatives Priest I. Ya. and A. A. Popov” (from the archive of V. N. Tochalova). Why did a young man, a seminary graduate, end up in America, and even become the closest co-laborer of the ruling hierarch? Neither in the Pravoslavny Vestnik nor in other sources is there any information about this. But in the archive of Valeria Nikolaevna, there is preserved a photograph of His Grace Nicholas with a dedicatory inscription, which contains the answer to this question. “To the ever-remembered relatives Priest I. Ya. and A. A. Popov. 1894, August four. Nicholas, Bishop of the Aleutians and Alaska.”
At the beginning of 1898, he was married to Julia Nikolaevna (née Mitropolskaya). Matushka Julia was the daughter of Archpriest Nicholas, a native American, born in Sitka. She was the niece of His Grace John, Bishop of the Aleutians (1836–1914), who governed the diocese in 1870–1877. Under him, the cathedra was transferred to San Francisco. Peter Popov was ordained a deacon on the feast of the Meeting of the Lord in the same year of 1898 by Bishop Nicholas. At the end of 1898, Fr. Peter is mentioned as archdeacon, cleric of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco.
At the end of 1898, Bishop Tikhon (Bellavin) ascended to the cathedra. On the thirteenth of December, 1898, in the cathedral, there was a meeting and a solemn moleben of two hierarchs—Tikhon and Nicholas. The next day, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich Romanov arrived in San Francisco, en route from China to Russia. The next day, Bishop Nicholas departed for New York on the same train as the grand duke and his suite.
Fr. Peter became a faithful assistant to His Grace Tikhon during the American period of his ministry.
From the moment of the arrival of the new hierarch at the cathedral church, Archdeacon Peter Popov is mentioned as constantly serving with the new hierarch, almost always accompanying him on trips. This is connected with Fr. Peter’s vocal giftedness, personal qualities such as “zeal, and efficiency, and meek disposition.” Fr. Peter became a faithful assistant to His Grace Tikhon during the American period of his ministry.
On the seventeenth/thirtieth of September, 1900, Fr. Peter was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Tikhon for the Church of the Holy Spirit in Bridgeport (Kentucky). At the ordination, the bishop delivered a word, the text of which is often found in publications about Patriarch Tikhon.
Speech to the Newly Ordained Priest Peter Popov.
I greet you, beloved Fr. Peter, with the grace of the priesthood. The merciful Lord, who has foreseen the best for you, now through my unworthiness elevates you from a lower ministry to a higher one, from archdeacon to priest. The word of Christ, which you have read today in the Holy Gospel is now being fulfilled in your life: His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord (Mt. 25:21). For your Christian life, meek disposition, obedience, exemplary efficiency and zeal in service, faithfulness in little, now the greater is entrusted to you: you are appointed priest of a not small parish, in which much still needs to be arranged, completed, perfected for the good of the holy Orthodox Church; besides this, I call upon you also to guide some neighboring parishes as an assistant dean.
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15). For this, neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery (cf. 1 Tim. 4:14). Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands (2 Tim. 1:6), which has descended now into your soul; it burns our iniquities, cleanses the heart from unclean, vile, idle and harmful thoughts, quenches in our flesh the flame of passion, uproots the tares of self-love, which are often mixed with good seeds, praiseworthy intentions and good deeds. Therefore, care for stirring up this gift in yourself, for inner purification and self-perfection should be your first and main concern, since the success of your pastoral ministry will depend most on this. This purification and perfection is achieved through sorrows and sufferings, through self-denial and the cross, which are commanded by Christ in another Gospel reading today (Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me (Mk. 8:34)). As gold is purified in a furnace, where dross is separated from the metal, so our soul is purified from sinful through sorrows and sufferings, in which our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day (cf. 2 Cor. 4:16). By the path of suffering and the Cross went the Most Holy Chief Shepherd Christ Himself, as the Cross of the Lord tells us today. By this same path must go everyone who wants to serve Him. If the God-man Himself rejected His human will, placed it in complete submission to the divine will, cried out O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt (Mt. 26:39), then all the more we, weak and sinful, must deny ourselves, submit our sin-loving will to the will of God, do not our will, but the will of Him who sent us. If He, being the Son, learned obedience by the things which he suffered (cf. Heb. 5:8), then all the more are we unable to achieve moral perfection without saving sorrows. If He innocently endured insults, reproaches, terrible passions, and the life-giving Cross, then all the more must we patiently bear sufferings, which we have fully deserved because of our sins. In a word, each of us must be co-crucified with Christ.
Perhaps you are troubled that on the day of the present celebration, joy and glorification of you, I speak to you a word of the cross, a word about sorrows and sufferings. But remember that even on Tabor, during the glorious Transfiguration of the Lord, Moses and Elias appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem (Lk. 9:31). The cross, sorrows and sufferings, properly understood and Christianly borne, lead to glorification. Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him (Jn. 13:31), said Christ about Himself at the beginning of His sufferings. And true is the word of the apostle: If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together (Rom. 8:17). Therefore, it is fitting to rejoice when we are given not only to believe in Christ, but also to suffer for his sake (cf. Phil. 1:29).
Let this holy cross, which is given to you today, always remind you of the path of the cross; and together with this, it will also ease this path for you, for the life-bearing cross is power, strength, might, deliverer, shield and guardian, victory and our affirmation (canon to the Cross, Ode 1, Troparion 3).
September 17/30, 1900,
San Francisco
At that time, Fr. Peter was a member of the Spiritual Consistory and held the position of its treasurer.
On the nineth/twenty-second of May 1901, the laying of the cornerstone for the St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York took place. The construction of the cathedral became one St. Tikhon’s most important deeds in the American cathedra. In 1902, Fr. Peter goes on leave to Russia. His return from leave is reported in the Pravoslavny Vestnik for August 1902. Fr. Peter returned to America on July 16.
On July 20 of the same year, that is, only four days after Fr. Peter’s return, the most important event in the diocese took place—the first divine service in the almost completed St. Nicholas Cathedral. And the psalmist at this service is listed as the “recently arrived“ Dmitry Popov. That is, Fr. Dimitry, then nineteen years old, arrived from Russia together with his elder brother. In the lists of graduates of the Odessa Seminary for 1902, it is indicated that Dmitry Popov successfully completed the first year of the seminary, was transferred to the second, and was dismissed at the request of his father. In the future, Fr. Dimitry was not listed among the graduates of this seminary. According to the recollections of his granddaughter, Fr. Dimitry had an excellent ear and voice, at home often sang an aria from the opera, “Ivan Susanin,” and, as she recalls, “he was even invited to sing in the opera.“
St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York. Photo 1905. Apparently this, as well as his unusually great experience for his age in liturgical matters, explains why Dmitry Popov was appointed psalmist of the main temple of the diocese in the near future. Already in November 1902, it is reported that D. Popov accompanied St. Tikhon at the consecration of a church in New Britain. On November ten/twenty-three, 1902, the solemn consecration of the St. Nicholas Cathedral took place. In the RAPV for February 1903, it is indicated that D. Popov serves as psalmist in the St. Nicholas Cathedral under Rector Protopriest A. Khotovitsky, Priest I. Zotikov. His brother P. Popov at this time (1903) is listed as priest of the cathedral in San Francisco under the rector (key-bearer) Hieromonk Sebastian (Dabovich; the first monk-priest born in the USA, now a canonized saint), and Priest Theodore Pashkovsky (future Metropolitan Theophilus). Here also served the retired Priest Nicholas Mitropolsky—Fr. Peter’s father-in-law. In total at this time in the diocese there were fifty-two churches, sixty-nine chapels, fifty priests, one deacon, and twenty-four psalmists. The Popov brothers served in the most important positions in the main parishes, which characterizes them as extraordinary personalities.
St. Tikhon with clergy in America. To the left of the hierarch stands Fr. Peter Popov. From the archive of Archbishop Dosifei (Ivanchenko). On February twenty-nine, 1904, in the Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Brooklyn, Archimandrite Raphael (Hawaweeny) was consecrated Bishop of Brooklyn, vicar of the Aleutian Diocese. The consecration was performed by Bishop Tikhon (Bellavin) and Bishop Innocent (Pustynsky). This consecration was the first Orthodox consecration in America. At this historic divine service, the choir was directed by Dmitry Popov.
At the beginning of 1905, it is reported that D. Popov had withdrawn in 1904 from the ranks of the diocesan brotherhood fund due to his departure for Russia. In the list of those leaving, Priest Tikhon Shalamov—the father of the famous writer V. Shalamov—is also indicated.
On April eighteen, 1906, an earthquake occurred in San Francisco, as a result of which the cathedral was completely destroyed. In connection with this, Fr. Peter was transferred to New York.
The cathedral in San Francisco after the earthquake.
In 1911, on May 6, in honor of the birthday of Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich, Fr. Peter was awarded the rank of archpriest. At this time, he is listed as head of the Emigrant House and rector of the Dormition Church at the house, and also continues to be a member of the spiritual board.
A unique shot—all three hierarchs of the Orthodox Church in America in one photograph. Fr. Peter is on the far left.
In a letter to Fr. Peter, Patriarch Tikhon thanks the American flock for help to those starving in Russia.
After the transfer of St. Tikhon to the Yaroslavl cathedra, Archbishop Platon (Rozhdestvensky) took over the American cathedra on June twenty, 1907. The ruling hierarch Evdokim (Meshchersky; in the future a prominent renovationist) in the summer of 1917, having gone to the Local Council, did not return to the diocese, which led to great disorders. After 1918, the RAPV was not published. There is very little information in the period up to 1922. In this period, the diocese was in a deep crisis. In 1922, the publication of the RAPV was resumed. In the April issue of the RAPV—a small article by Fr. Peter in which he reports with almost physically palpable joy, even many years later, about a letter received by him from His Holiness Tikhon. In this letter—a congratulation to him personally and to the entire American flock on the approaching Day of Pascha and words of gratitude for help to the starving in Russia, as well as reminding them to continue collecting aid. This letter at that period was one of the few joyful events in the diocese.
Article by Fr. Peter reporting on the letter from Patriarch Tikhon. 1922. The sufferings of the Russian Fatherland of that period could not but affect the compatriots in distant America. On the Meeting of the Lord 1923, an article of congratulation to Fr. Peter on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his priesthood was published. Here he is indicated as key-bearer of the St. Nicholas Cathedral and treasurer of the Diocesan Council of the North American Diocese.
In 1924, from Russia returned the former priest of the diocese, John Kedrovsky, who had gone over to the renovationist “church” and been elevated to the rank of “bishop.” He was a US citizen, and from the renovationist Synod had title documents to the ownership of the St. Nicholas Cathedral. After many court battles, the cathedral passed to the renovationists. The Protection Church became the new cathedral. Fr. Peter served there for some time. In 1929, it was reported that Fr. Peter was transferred to the clergy of the Albanian Church. In September 1935, in the Los Angeles Times a large article appeared about a celebration in honor of Fr. Peter’s appointment as rector to the Russian church, with a solemn dinner and a photograph of Fr. Peter with his family. But the new rector was given very little time to serve. On November eleven, 1935, Fr. Peter died in a car accident. The same fact is mentioned in the testimonies of Fr. Dimitry Popov in the criminal case. This speaks of the existence of connections between Fr. Dimitry and relatives in America.
The Popov family. Los Angeles Times, September 1935. The photograph was taken shortly before the tragic death of Fr. Peter.
Fr. Peter left behind a wife and two daughters.
Report on the death of Fr. Peter. Los Angeles Times, 1935.
Gravestone of Julia and Claudia Popov in Colma.
After her husband’s death, Matushka remained at the church and sang in the choir. She and her daughters lived long lives. Matushka Julia Nikolaevna died in 1979 at the age of ninety-eight. The elder daughter Claudia passed away in 1998 at the age of ninety-seven, and the younger daughter Olga died in 1988. Fr. Peter, Matushka Julia, Claudia, and Matushka Julia’s parents are buried in the Serbian cemetery in Colma.
Grave of Fr. Peter Popov in Colma.
