Martyr John Kovsharov

Martyr John (Ivan Mikhailovich Kovsharov) was born in Odessa in 1878 into a family of townspeople. A lawyer by training, he practised as a barrister in St Petersburg and became legal adviser to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In spring 1918 he was elected commissioner for diocesan affairs, charged with representing and defending the rights and interests of the Petrograd diocese.

In 1922, during the Soviet campaign to confiscate church valuables, he was arrested in the case of "resistance to the confiscation of church valuables" and tried by the Petrograd revolutionary tribunal together with Metropolitan Benjamin (Kazansky), Archimandrite Sergius (Shein), Professor Yury Novitsky and dozens of clergy and laymen. On 5 July 1922 the four were sentenced to death, and in the night of 12–13 August (31 July Old Style) 1922 they were shot, reportedly near the Porokhovye station on the outskirts of Petrograd.

He was glorified with Metropolitan Benjamin by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1992 and is regarded as a patron of lawyers. Feast: 31 July (13 August); also in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and the Synaxis of the Saints of St Petersburg.