Hieromartyr Benjamin (Kazansky), Metropolitan of Petrograd

DATE CORRECTION: none of the four previously listed dates (June 29, February 22, January 18, July 12) were confirmed by any source — replaced with the correct date of execution.

Hieromartyr Benjamin, born Vasily Pavlovich Kazansky, was born April 17 (some sources: 29), 1873, in the village of Nimensky Pogost, Kargopol district, Olonets province. He won wide popular love as a pastorally sensitive bishop, close to ordinary parishioners and workers; in 1917 he was elected (a rare case — by vote of clergy and laity) Metropolitan of Petrograd and Gdov.

In 1922, during the Soviet campaign to confiscate church valuables under the pretext of famine relief, he negotiated with the authorities for the voluntary handover of non-consecrated valuables, refusing to give up consecrated liturgical vessels — this was treated as "resistance." He was arrested June 1, 1922. The Petrograd Revolutionary Tribunal began a show trial against him and dozens of co-defendants on June 10, 1922; on July 5, 1922, he was sentenced to death together with several others. Appeals for clemency were denied. He was shot on the night of August 13, 1922 (per most accounts, in the Porokhovye/Irinovka area outside Petrograd) together with Archimandrite Sergius (Shein) and laymen Yuri Novitsky and Ivan Kovsharov. According to eyewitness accounts, he prayed calmly before his execution.

He was glorified as a hieromartyr by the Bishops' Council of the Moscow Patriarchate as early as 1992 — before the general glorification of most New Martyrs at the Jubilee Council of 2000. He was rehabilitated (his sentence voided) by a Soviet/Russian court in 1990.

His feast is kept on July 31/August 13.