the holy new martyrs of eastern russia - Coptic Orthodox teaching

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sledge. And behind us this ‘Father Hierodeacon’ was lifting up the snow with
a spade. And the watchman-batyushka whom I knew bowed to him and said:
‘Hello, Vladyka.’ But I said: ‘Who’s the Vladyka here?’ ‘The one with the
spade,’ he said. ‘But he’s a hierodeacon,’ I said. ‘What are you saying!’ ‘That’s
how I know him!’ ‘But I,’ he said, ‘sleep next to him.’ I was so embarrassed…
On the way back, when we were returning with the sledge, this batyushka
said: ‘Vladyka, why do you lead innocent people into error?’ But he smiled…
He really was a hierarch… And I began to run away from him… Immediately
I saw that Vladyka Nectarius was coming… ‘Vladyka, forgive me… for
calling you a hierodeacon… You know, you led me into error.’ And he said:
‘Why did you decide that I really was a hierodeacon and had no doubts?’ ‘But
you work a lot, not like a hierarch… Hierarchs don’t work like that…’ ‘Yes,
they’re all idlers,’ he said.”
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, in December, 1928, 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 exile in Kazan, Vladyka sent candidates for
the priesthood to Archbishop Demetrius to ordain. And in his indictment
after his last arrest we read: “He had direct links with Archbishop Demetrius
of Gdov in the church-administrative centre of the counter-revolutionary
organization, ‘the Trues’…”
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