John Kochurov Hieromartyr of Tsarskoye Selo

Hieromartyr John Kochurov was one of the first priests who suffered during the establishment of Soviet power. When in 1918 His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon served the first funeral liturgy in the history of the Russian Church “for the new hieromartyrs and martyrs,” the name of Father John was remembered as the name of the first murdered priest.

Father John Kochurov was born in the Ryazan province in 1871 in the family of a rural priest, Father Alexander Kochurov, and his wife, Mother Anna. He graduated from the seminary in Ryazan, and then from the Theological Academy in St. Petersburg. After completing his studies, Father John was assigned missionary service in the Aleutian and Alaskan diocese. Before leaving, the future priest married Alexandra Chernysheva.

Life in America

In America, Father John was ordained to the priesthood and immediately appointed rector of the Church of St. Vladimir in Chicago, and it was with this city that most of his life was subsequently connected. An Orthodox parish in this city was opened only in 1892. Of course, the life of the Orthodox parish here was radically different from the life of any Orthodox parish in Russia. And the parish had very little money, because the parishioners were mostly poor Orthodox emigrants.

Father John conducted very successful missionary activities; the number of permanent parishioners of the Chicago church increased to 215 people. The temple itself was located in a rented building, and above it, on the second floor, there was an apartment where Father John himself lived with his family.

Of course, the rector wanted the Orthodox Church to have its own building. He dreamed of having an Orthodox cathedral in the center of an American city. And he not only dreamed, he decided to do it. In 1900, Father John, with the blessing of St. Tikhon, the future Russian Patriarch, went to Russia, where in four months he collected the entire amount for the construction of a new cathedral! In 1903, parishioners entered a new Chicago church, consecrated in honor of the Holy Life-Giving Trinity.

Canonization, discovery of relics

On November 1, 1981, by decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia was canonized without establishing a separate day of remembrance[2].

On December 4, 1994, he was canonized as a holy martyr by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church[3].

On February 5, 1995, a worship cross was installed near the burial site (renewed in 2002)

As a result of archaeological excavations at the site of St. Catherine's Cathedral in 2006, fragments of human bones were discovered, which, as the discovery of the relics of the holy martyr John, was announced on the day of the celebration of the saint's memory - November 13, 2008 - when the remains, previously stored in the altar of St. Sophia Cathedral in Pushkin, were taken out for worship[4]. Genetic testing of the remains was not carried out.

Since 2013, the relics of John of Tsarskoye Selo have been kept in a specially built shrine in St. Catherine’s Cathedral.

Path of the Martyr

In 1906, Father John was appointed dean of the New York District. It is unknown what the fate of this good shepherd would have been had he remained in America. But in 1907, the health of his father-in-law, who was a priest of the St. Petersburg diocese, worsened, and Father John began to ask to go to Russia. In addition, he wanted to give his six children an education in Russia.

Father John's request was granted, and in 1907 he left the Chicago parish, so dear to his heart, and went home. At first he served in the Transfiguration Cathedral of Narva as a supernumerary priest and taught at the gymnasium. But at the end of 1916 he was appointed second priest of the Catherine Tsarskoye Selo Cathedral. Thus began his way of the cross.

In Tsarskoe Selo in 1917, there were Cossack units of General Pyotr Nikolaevich Krasnov, supporting the Provisional Government, but in October of the same year, Tsarskoe Selo was already stormed by the Bolsheviks. During the massive shelling, people rushed to churches, hoping to find salvation there. Many ran to St. Catherine’s Cathedral.

Father John called on the people to remain calm. It was decided to serve a prayer service and go through the city in a procession of the cross, reading prayers for an end to the internecine warfare. The religious procession and prayer service took place, and on October 31 the Bolsheviks entered the city. This is what American journalist and socialist John Reed wrote in his book “Ten Days That Shook the World”:

“I returned to the Palace of the Council in Tsarskoye in the car of the regimental headquarters. Here everything remained as it was: crowds of workers, soldiers and sailors came and went, everything around was crowded with trucks, armored cars and guns, screams and laughter were still heard in the air - the triumph of an unusual victory. Half a dozen Red Guards were pushing through the crowd, among whom was a priest. It was Father John, they said, the same one who blessed the Cossacks when they entered the city. Later I had to hear that this priest was shot.”

Yes, he was shot... Father John was arrested along with the rest of the priests of Catherine's Cathedral. He tried to explain that the religious procession and prayer services were not at all to bless anyone in particular. They asked for peace! But all this irritated the soldiers. He was beaten and then dragged along the sleepers to the airfield. There he was shot in front of his son, a high school student. Three days later, the seventeen-year-old boy died, unable to withstand the moral shock.

The body of the murdered Father John in the evening of the same day was taken to the chapel of the Palace Hospital, and from there to the Catherine Cathedral, where he was buried. Father John was buried in the tomb of St. Catherine's Cathedral, where he carried out his pastoral ministry.

Ioann Kochurov

Ioann Kochurov (Ioann Tsarskoye Selo) 1871 – 1917

Memorial dates: October 31/November 13

Of all the holy martyrs of the Russian Orthodox Church who suffered from the Bolsheviks, Saint John of Tsarskoye Selo deserves special mention. On October 31, 1917, according to the old style, Bolshevik detachments, fighting the troops of the Provisional Government, entered Tsarskoe Selo. Father John Kochurov was accused of supporting the Cossacks, declared an enemy of the revolution and, after interrogation, was shot. So the missionary, teacher, priest became a victim of the Red Terror unleashed during the October Revolution and the Civil War.

Father John was born on July 13, 1871 in the village of Bigildino, Dankovsky district, Ryazan province, into a pious and large family of rural priest Alexander Kochurov and his wife Anna. That is, he came from among the hereditary provincial Russian clergy, whose fate has always been difficult in Russia. The local rural nobility did not accept rural priests into their midst, and the zemstvo intelligentsia also rejected them. But on the other hand, priests were the first fully educated class in Russia.

In the nineteenth century, the level of education of members of the clergy was much higher than, for example, the education of provincial nobles. Therefore, it is not surprising that the future Father John, after graduating from the Dankov Theological School, continued his studies at the Ryazan Theological Seminary. After graduation, he brilliantly passed the entrance tests to the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. Since his student days, Father John dreamed of becoming a missionary. In 1895, he received a diploma from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy and, at his own request, was sent to missionary service in the United States of America.

Shortly before traveling overseas, Father John married Alexandra Chernysheva. By the way, someone else in his place would have refused the long journey to Protestant America. After all, marriage gave him a good chance of ending up on the staff of the St. Petersburg clergy. Father John's wife was the daughter of a deacon of the Kazan Cathedral. If the graduate had only wanted, he could have stayed in Russia. However, he was not afraid and preferred difficult missionary service in a foreign land to his native land.

First, Father John and his mother arrived in New York, where he mastered the English language. In most areas of the United States at the end of the nineteenth century, Orthodox church life was just beginning. And on the part of the clergy there was a need for missionary service. It was necessary to create full-fledged Orthodox parishes among former immigrants of various religions from all over the world. It was to one of these areas of the diocese that Father John had to go.

On August 27, 1895, he was ordained a priest by His Grace Nicholas, Bishop of the Aleutians and Alaska. The beginning of Father John's parish ministry was associated with the opening of the Orthodox Church of St. Vladimir in Chicago in 1892. My father also served in the Church of the Three Saints in the neighboring town of Streator.

In one of his articles in December 1898, Father John gave an accurate description of the composition of the parishioners. In particular, he wrote: “The Orthodox parish of the Vladimir Chicago Church consists of a few native Russian immigrants, from Galician and Ugric Slavs, Arabs, Bulgarians and Arabians. Most of the parishioners are people who earn their living by hard work in their place of residence on the outskirts of the city.”

The parish was poor, but this is a very important moment for America. Much depended on the financial capabilities of the parish community. Unlike the Russian Empire, Father John did not have to count on financial assistance from the Church. Only the abbot and the community. Already in the first three years of his parish ministry, Father John added 86 Uniates and 5 Catholics to the Orthodox Church. The number of regular parishioners in the churches of the Chicago-Streator parish has increased significantly. At both churches there were children's church schools, in which more than twenty students studied.

Through the efforts of Father John, a new church was built in Chicago in 1903. According to his friends, he approached this difficult task with genuine pastoral inspiration and sober practical calculation. The construction was blessed by the future Russian Patriarch, St. Tikhon. The temple required significant expenses for those times - 50 thousand dollars. The money for the construction was collected by Father John during his vacation in Russia, where he arrived in 1900. At the same time, on the recommendation of St. Tikhon, Father John was awarded the Order of St. Anne of the third degree for his inspired works. And three years later, by decree of the Holy Synod, he was elevated to the rank of archpriest.

In 1907 his missionary share was completed. Father John returned to his homeland, where he was assigned to the clergy of the Transfiguration Cathedral in the city of Narva. By order of the chief administrator of the St. Petersburg educational district, Father John was approved for active service in the men's gymnasium and for hire in the Narva women's gymnasium. He served as a teacher of the law, and it was this position that became the main area of his church service for the next nine years of his life.

From November 1916, Father John was appointed parish priest of the Catherine Cathedral of Tsarskoye Selo. From the first months, he established himself not only as a zealous and reverent performer of God's service, but also as an eloquent, erudite preacher. His sermons were collected under the arches of the Catherine Cathedral by Orthodox Christians from all over Tsarskoye Selo. Peace and tranquility, deserved by his labors, came in 1916. It seemed that such a successful start to parish ministry in his homeland should have opened the beginning of a quiet life for Father John. He was forty-five years old. He lived in family happiness with his mother and five children - his eldest son Vladimir was in military service at that time. His characteristic pastoral inspiration and self-sacrifice could be combined with everyday stability and spiritual peace. But... The quiet, pious time of his life turned out to be very short-lived...

The events of the February Revolution, which broke out in Petrograd in 1917, gradually began to drag Tsarskoe Selo into an insidious whirlpool of general madness. A few days after the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd, the echo of the terrible upheavals that took place in the capital echoed in Tsarskoye Selo. In those days, the city was inhabited by Cossack units of General Krasnov, who remained loyal to the Provisional Government. In an effort to oust the Cossacks from the city, armed detachments of Red Guards, sailors and soldiers who supported the Bolshevik coup moved from Petrograd to Tsarskoye Selo. On the morning of October 30, 1917, old style, the Bolsheviks approached the city and began shelling it with artillery. In Tsarskoe Selo, whose residents did not yet suspect that the country was embroiled in a civil war, panic began. Many townspeople, having no idea what to do, rushed to Orthodox churches. They hoped to find prayerful peace during the service. The entire clergy of St. Catherine's Cathedral responded vividly to the spiritual questioning of their flock.

After a special prayer service performed under the vaults of the filled-to-capacity church, the rector of the cathedral, Archpriest Nikolai Smirnov, together with other cathedral priests, decided to hold a religious procession in the city. During it, the clergy read deliberate prayers for an end to the internecine fratricidal warfare. Among them in the cathedral was Father John. This is how the correspondent of the Petrograd newspaper “All-Russian Church and Public Bulletin” describes these events: “The religious procession had to be carried out under artillery fire and, contrary to all expectations, it turned out to be quite crowded.

The sobs and cries of women and children drowned out the words of prayer for peace. Two priests on the way of the religious procession delivered heated sermons, calling on the people to calm in view of the coming trials. I was able to establish quite positively that the sermons of the priests were devoid of any political overtones. The religious procession dragged on. Dusk gave way to evening. Wax candles were lit in the hands of the worshippers. All the people sang. Just at these moments the Cossacks were leaving the city. The priests were warned about this: “Isn’t it time to stop praying?!” “We will fulfill our duty to the end,” they declared. “And our brothers have left us and are coming to us!” What will they do to us?

Wanting to prevent the possibility of fighting on the streets of Tsarskoe Selo, the command of the Cossack units on the evening of October 30 began to withdraw them from the city. On the morning of October 31, without meeting any resistance, Bolshevik troops entered Tsarskoe Selo. An unnamed eyewitness to the tragic events told about what happened next in a letter to the outstanding St. Petersburg archpriest Philosopher Ornatsky. It was he who reported the torment that befell Father John. “...On October 31,” the letter states, “when the Bolsheviks, together with the Red Guards, entered Tsarskoye, a search of apartments and arrests of officers began. And Father John (Alexandrovich Kochurov) was taken to the outskirts of the city, to the Fedorovsky Cathedral, and killed there. They were killed because the priests, organizing the religious procession, supposedly prayed only for the victory of the Cossacks, which, of course, in reality was not and could not be. The rest of the priests were released yesterday evening. Thus, there was one more martyr for the faith of Christ. Although the deceased did not stay in Tsarskoye for long, he gained everyone’s sympathy and a lot of people flocked to his conversations.”

The Vestnik correspondent I mentioned reproduced the horrifying picture of the martyrdom of Father John and the events that followed it with additional details. “The priests were captured and sent to the premises of the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. The priest, Father John Kochurov, protested and tried to clarify the matter. He received several blows to the face. With whoops and hooting, the angry crowd led him to the Tsarskoye Selo airfield. Several rifles were raised at the unarmed shepherd. A shot, another - with a wave of his hands, the priest fell face down on the ground, blood staining his cassock. Death was not instant. They pulled him by the hair, and someone suggested that someone should be “finished off like a dog.” In the morning, the priest's body was transferred to the former palace hospital. The chairman of the Duma, who visited the hospital, together with one of the vowels, as reported by Delo Narodu, saw the body of the priest. The silver cross on his chest was no longer there.”

From the hospital, the body of Father John was transferred to St. Catherine’s Cathedral, where a funeral service was held on November 4, 1917. At the request of the parishioners, the priest was buried in a tomb under the Cathedral.

These memories of the correspondent take on a special spiritual tragic meaning. 12 years before his death, during the celebration of the 10th anniversary of his priestly service, Father John was presented with a golden pectoral cross. Father John then said: “I kiss this holy cross, the gift of your brotherly love for me. Let him be your support in difficult times. I will not say loud phrases that I will not part with him until the grave. This phrase is loud, but not reasonable. His place is not in the grave. Let it remain here on earth for my children and descendants, as a family shrine and as clear proof that brotherhood and friendship are the most sacred phenomena on earth.”

This is how Father John thanked his friends and his flock. And he did not suspect that it was precisely the prayer for the sending of “brotherhood and friendship” to the Russian Orthodox people that would arouse the merciless hatred of the apostates towards him. The barbarians, who, having deprived him of earthly life and torn the cross from his lifeless body, could not deprive him of the imperishable glory of Orthodox martyrdom.

On March 31, 1918, exactly five months after the death of Father John, in the church of the Moscow Theological Seminary, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon celebrated the first “funeral Liturgy for the new hieromartyrs and martyrs” in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church of the 20th century. At that time, the number of murdered clergymen known to the Holy Synod had already reached 15 people. In total, over the next two years in Rus' in 1918 and 1919, according to some sources, the Bolsheviks killed 28 bishops and 1414 priests, whose names are already known.

On December 4, 1994, Father John was canonized as a saint by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, as John of Tsarskoye Selo. And since then he has been venerated as the first Russian new martyr. As a result of archaeological excavations at the site of St. Catherine's Cathedral in 2006, fragments of human bones were discovered. This, as the discovery of the relics of the holy martyr John, was announced on the day of celebration of the saint’s memory - November 13, 2008. The remains, previously kept in the altar of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Pushkin, were taken out for veneration.

Since 2013, the relics of John of Tsarskoye Selo have been kept in a specially built shrine in St. Catherine’s Cathedral. In conclusion of the story, it should be noted that the martyrdom of Holy Father John became a stern omen, a formidable warning for all clergy and laity during the years of growing chaos of the Civil War. His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, who personally knew Father John, wrote to his widow: “We keep in our hearts the firm hope that the deceased shepherd, adorned with the crown of martyrdom, will now stand before the Throne of God in the ranks of the chosen ones of the faithful flock of Christ.”

The whole life of John of Tsarskoye Selo is an example of the fate of a true Orthodox clergyman. And no matter how sad the tragic death of the martyr was, there is also consolation in it from the knowledge that the saint gave all of himself for the love of God and his neighbors.

Prayer to Hieromartyr John of Tsarskoye Selo:

We inflame our lives with love for God as a martyr for Christ and our neighbors, for this sake you received the crown of righteousness from Him, praying to the all-good God, Hieromartyr John, to preserve the Holy Church in the world and save our souls. Carry out your pastoral ministry zealously, as if you have offered your auspicious soul to God, pray to Christ God, Father John, to grant peace to the world and great mercy to our souls.

Excerpt characterizing Kochurov, Ivan Alexandrovich

Napoleon nodded his head affirmatively. The adjutant galloped towards Claparede's division. And a few minutes later the young guard, standing behind the mound, moved from their place. Napoleon silently looked in this direction. “No,” he suddenly turned to Berthier, “I cannot send Claparède.” Send Friant’s division,” he said. Although there was no advantage in sending Friant’s division instead of Claparède, and there was even an obvious inconvenience and delay in stopping Claparède now and sending Friant, the order was carried out with precision. Napoleon did not see that in relation to his troops he was playing the role of a doctor who interferes with his medications - a role that he so correctly understood and condemned. Friant's division, like the others, disappeared into the smoke of the battlefield. Adjutants continued to jump in from different directions, and everyone, as if by agreement, said the same thing. Everyone asked for reinforcements, everyone said that the Russians were holding their ground and producing un feu d'enfer [hellfire], from which the French army was melting. Napoleon sat thoughtfully on a folding chair. Hungry in the morning, Mr. de Beausset, who loved to travel, approached the emperor and dared to respectfully offer His Majesty breakfast. “I hope that now I can congratulate Your Majesty on your victory,” he said. Napoleon silently shook his head. Believing that denial referred to victory and not to breakfast, Mr. de Beausset allowed himself to playfully respectfully remark that there was no reason in the world that could prevent one from having breakfast when one could do it. “Allez vous... [Get out to...],” Napoleon suddenly said gloomily and turned away. A blissful smile of regret, repentance and delight shone on Monsieur Bosse's face, and he walked with a floating step to the other generals. Napoleon experienced a heavy feeling, similar to that experienced by an always happy gambler who madly threw his money away, always won and suddenly, just when he had calculated all the chances of the game, feeling that the more thoughtful his move was, the more likely he was to lose. The troops were the same, the generals were the same, the preparations were the same, the disposition was the same, the same proclamation courte et energique [proclamation short and energetic], he himself was the same, he knew it, he knew that he was even much more experienced and now he was more skillful than he was before, even the enemy was the same as at Austerlitz and Friedland; but the terrible swing of the hand fell magically powerlessly. All those previous methods were invariably crowned with success: the concentration of batteries at one point, and the attack of reserves to break through the line, and the attack of the cavalry des hommes de fer [iron men] - all these methods had already been used, and not only were not victory, but the same news came from all sides about killed and wounded generals, about the need for reinforcements, about the impossibility of bringing down the Russians and about the disorder of the troops. Previously, after two or three orders, two or three phrases, marshals and adjutants galloped with congratulations and cheerful faces, declaring the corps of prisoners, des faisceaux de drapeaux et d'aigles ennemis, [bunches of enemy eagles and banners,] and guns, and convoys, and Murat, as trophies He only asked for permission to send in cavalry to pick up the convoys. This was the case at Lodi, Marengo, Arcole, Jena, Austerlitz, Wagram, and so on, and so on. Now something strange was happening to his troops. Despite the news of the capture of flushes, Napoleon saw that it was not the same, not at all the same as in all his previous battles. He saw that the same feeling that he experienced was experienced by all the people around him who were experienced in battle. All faces were sad, all eyes avoided each other. Only Bosse could not understand the significance of what was happening. Napoleon, after his long experience of war, knew well what it meant for eight hours, after all the efforts expended, for the attacker to not win a battle. He knew that it was almost a lost battle and that the slightest chance could now - at that tense point of hesitation on which the battle stood - destroy him and his troops. When he turned over in his imagination this whole strange Russian campaign, in which not a single battle was won, in which neither banners, nor cannons, nor corps of troops were taken in two months, when he looked at the secretly sad faces of those around him and listened to reports about that the Russians were still standing - a terrible feeling, similar to the feeling experienced in dreams, gripped him, and all the unfortunate events that could destroy him came to his mind. The Russians could attack his left wing, they could tear his middle apart, a stray cannonball could kill him. All this was possible. In his previous battles, he pondered only the accidents of success, but now countless unfortunate accidents presented themselves to him, and he expected them all. Yes, it was like in a dream, when a person imagines a villain attacking him, and the man in the dream swung and hit his villain with that terrible force that, he knows, should destroy him, and he feels that his hand, powerless and soft, falls like a rag, and the horror of irresistible death seizes the helpless man. The news that the Russians were attacking the left flank of the French army aroused this horror in Napoleon. He sat silently under the mound on a folding chair, head down and elbows on his knees. Berthier approached him and offered to ride along the line to make sure what the situation was. - What? What are you saying? - said Napoleon. - Yes, tell me to give me a horse. He got on horseback and rode to Semenovsky. In the slowly spreading powder smoke throughout the entire space through which Napoleon was riding, horses and people lay in pools of blood, singly and in heaps. Napoleon and none of his generals had ever seen such horror, such a number of people killed in such a small space. The roar of the guns, which did not stop for ten hours straight and tormented the ear, gave special significance to the spectacle (like music in living paintings). Napoleon rode to the heights of Semenovsky and through the smoke he saw rows of people in uniforms of colors that were unusual for his eyes. They were Russians. The Russians stood in dense ranks behind Semenovsky and the mound, and their guns continually hummed and smoked along their line. There was no more battle. There was an ongoing murder that could lead neither the Russians nor the French anywhere. Napoleon stopped his horse and fell back into that reverie from which Berthier had brought him out; he could not stop the work that was being done in front of him and around him and which was considered to be guided by him and dependent on him, and this work for the first time, due to failure, seemed unnecessary and terrible to him. One of the generals who approached Napoleon allowed himself to suggest that he bring the old guard into action. Ney and Berthier, standing next to Napoleon, looked at each other and smiled contemptuously at the senseless proposal of this general. Napoleon lowered his head and was silent for a long time. “A huit cent lieux de France je ne ferai pas demolir ma garde, [Three thousand two hundred miles from France, I cannot allow my guard to be defeated.],” he said and, turning his horse, rode back to Shevardin. Kutuzov sat, with his gray head drooping and his heavy body slumped, on a carpeted bench, in the very place where Pierre had seen him in the morning. He did not make any orders, but only agreed or disagreed with what was offered to him. “Yes, yes, do it,” he responded to various proposals. “Yes, yes, go, my dear, and have a look,” he addressed first one or the other of those close to him; or: “No, no, we’d better wait,” he said. He listened to the reports brought to him, gave orders when his subordinates required it; but, listening to the reports, he seemed not to be interested in the meaning of the words of what was said to him, but something else in the expressions of the faces, in the tone of speech of those reporting, interested him. From long-term military experience, he knew and with his senile mind understood that it is impossible for one person to lead hundreds of thousands of people fighting death, and he knew that the fate of the battle is not decided by the orders of the commander-in-chief, not by the place where the troops are stationed, not by the number of guns and killed people, and that elusive force called the spirit of the army, and he watched over this force and led it, as far as it was in his power. The general expression on Kutuzov’s face was one of concentrated, calm attention and tension, which barely overcame the fatigue of his weak and old body. At eleven o'clock in the morning they brought him the news that the flushes occupied by the French were again repulsed, but that Prince Bagration was wounded. Kutuzov gasped and shook his head. “Go to Prince Pyotr Ivanovich and find out in detail what and how,” he said to one of the adjutants and then turned to the Prince of Wirtemberg, who was standing behind him: “Would your Highness be willing to take command of the first army.” Soon after the prince's departure, so soon that he could not yet get to Semenovsky, the prince's adjutant returned from him and reported to his Serene Highness that the prince was asking for troops. Kutuzov winced and sent Dokhturov an order to take command of the first army, and asked the prince, whom he said he could not do without at these important moments, to return to his place. When the news of Murat’s capture was brought and the staff congratulated Kutuzov, he smiled. “Wait, gentlemen,” he said. “The battle has been won, and there is nothing unusual in the capture of Murat.” But it's better to wait and rejoice. “However, he sent an adjutant to travel through the troops with this news. When Shcherbinin rode up from the left flank with a report about the French occupation of flushes and Semenovsky, Kutuzov, guessing from the sounds of the battlefield and from Shcherbinin’s face that the news was bad, stood up, as if stretching his legs, and, taking Shcherbinin by the arm, took him aside . “Go, my dear,” he said to Ermolov, “see if anything can be done.” Kutuzov was in Gorki, in the center of the position of the Russian army. The attack directed by Napoleon on our left flank was repulsed several times. In the center the French did not move further than Borodin. From the left flank, Uvarov's cavalry forced the French to flee. In the third hour the French attacks stopped. On all the faces who came from the battlefield, and on those who stood around him, Kutuzov read an expression of tension that had reached the highest degree. Kutuzov was pleased with the success of the day beyond expectations. But the old man’s physical strength left him. Several times his head dropped low, as if falling, and he dozed off. He was served dinner.

Notes

Information in the article about the Red Terror
[sinod.ruschurchabroad.org/Arh%20Sobor%201981%20spisok%20novomuchenikov.htm List of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia (approved by the ROCOR Council of Bishops in 1981)]
[spb-eparh-vedomosti.ru/article.php?id=282 New Martyr John Kochurov, presbyter of Tsarskoye Selo - | St. Petersburg Diocesan Gazette]
[news.aquaviva.ru/news/date/2008-11-21/id/1066/ Interview with the rector of the St. Sophia Cathedral, Archpriest Gennady Zverev]

November 13th in history. Hieromartyr John Kochurov