Dmitry Emelyanovich Vlasenkov

Born on May 15, 1880, in the village of Rossasno, Goretsky Uyezd, Mogilev Province, in the family of a peasant who served as a volost elder in the village.
After completing parish school, he engaged in farming, like his father and brothers. In 1901, he was drafted into the army and served until 1905 in the Finnish Life Guard Regiment, first as a private, and later as a non-commissioned officer. He suffered a concussion in the war.

He married Daria Gavrilovna, and God granted them a large family. Raised in faith and piety, he was a devout parishioner of the church in his native village, sang in the choir from childhood, served as a psalm reader for some time, and during the persecutions in 1931, he was elected to the church council. He was the churchwarden.

In 1931 or 1932, he was sentenced to 3 months of forced labor.

He remained on the church council until 1934, when the church was closed, and the priest was arrested. Dmitry Yemelyanovich transferred and hid many church and parish books and some icons from the closed church at his home. Together with the parishioners, he tried to get the church reopened, but their efforts were unsuccessful.

In 1934, the authorities arrested Dmitry Yemelyanovich's brother and sentenced him to ten years in prison; he escaped, hid, but was arrested again in 1937. That same year, Dmitry himself was tried under Article 152 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, but the verdict is unknown. During the arrest, some of the hidden books were burned in the yard, and some were loaded onto a truck and taken away with the arrested. Later, during the trial, only one book was mentioned - perhaps the rest had some value and were appropriated by the security officers.

Life became increasingly difficult, and Dmitry Yemelyanovich agreed with his wife to separate: Daria Gavrilovna went to work in the collective farm, while Dmitry Yemelyanovich farmed his plot to feed the family.

Peasants, suffering from the lack of church services, began to ask Dmitry Yemelyanovich, as someone who was knowledgeable in church matters and a former psalm reader, to come to their homes to read the Psalter for the deceased. At their request, he began to visit homes to read the Psalter for the dead, and on Radonitsa, he would go to the cemetery with the villagers, where up to two hundred people would gather to pray. There were also choirs that sang memorial services under Dmitry Yemelyanovich's direction.

The authorities were displeased that, despite the church's closure and the priest's arrest, religious life in the village continued, and eventually decided to arrest Dmitry Yemelyanovich. Several witnesses, under the threat of being prosecuted for participating in memorial services, agreed to sign false testimonies alleging that the psalm reader engaged in anti-Soviet agitation during the memorials.

On May 16, 1940, Dmitry Yemelyanovich was arrested on the grounds that "...not having a specific job, he conducts religious rites, thus earning a living (priest), of Belarusian nationality, married, has a wife and eight children, who receive an allowance for large families." He was imprisoned in the city of Orsha.

He was immediately interrogated.
From the interrogation materials:

During the search, lists of people in the community, a cross, a small icon, and Bibles were found with you. Why did you keep these items? the investigator asked.

The lists were made in 1932 to collect money for paying church taxes... The lists, cross, icon, and Bibles were kept with me because I am a believer and read them.

You are arrested for conducting anti-Soviet activities among the population. Answer the question.

I did not conduct anti-Soviet activities among the population, but I admit that there were times when I conducted religious rites.

We have information that under the guise of conducting religious rites, you carried out anti-Soviet activities among the population, spreading false, provocative rumors about the fall of Soviet power. Tell us about this.

I never conducted anti-Soviet activities and did not speak against Soviet power.

False witnesses were called, confirming their testimonies during a confrontation; after this, the investigator interrogated the psalmist again.

Witnesses have sufficiently incriminated you in conducting anti-Soviet activities during confrontations. Give an answer! demanded the investigator.

I did not conduct any anti-Soviet activities, and I do not confirm the witnesses' testimonies about anti-Soviet agitation. I admit that I conducted religious rites for those who asked me to.

Why don't you want to reveal your anti-Soviet activities to the investigation?

I don't know why the witnesses say this about me, but I did not speak any anti-Soviet fabrications.

On July 17, 1940, a session of the Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Vitebsk Court took place; after all formalities were completed, Dmitry Yemelyanovich was interrogated again, saying: "I do not admit guilt, I did not engage in any anti-Soviet activities. During the search, the Psalter, Gospel, two prayer books, and a cross were seized from me. I was a chorister in Rossasno since childhood, I was in the church council until the church was taken away. I went around and wrote down the names of people in Rossasno to allow them to participate in church meetings. I collected money to pay the church tax... In 1939, at the cemetery in Rossasno during Radonitsa, I performed a religious rite; there were about 150-200 people, and I did not conduct any anti-Soviet agitation; these witnesses speak against me, I don't know why: I didn't fight or litigate with them... I claim that I did not make any counter-revolutionary anti-Soviet statements."

After hearing all the testimonies, which Dmitry Yemelyanovich did not agree with, the prosecutor filed a motion: to send the case for further investigation, as all witnesses from the prosecution side were relatives, other witnesses were not interrogated, and besides, the investigation, while clarifying the defendant's participation in performing religious rites, did not clarify whether this had any relation to his counter-revolutionary activities.

The Vitebsk Regional Prosecutor challenged this decision and ordered the case to be returned to court, but with a different composition. On November 19, 1940, a new session of the regional court took place.

Responding to the accusations in court, Dmitry Yemelyanovich again stated: "I do not admit guilt in the charges brought against me. It doesn't matter to me what kind of government there would be—I am obliged to obey it. When there were memorial services in our village, I never spoke badly about the authorities at them. And I declare that I lived well on the farmstead, as well as in the collective farm center... I did perform rites; when someone died, they invited me to the funeral, and here I read in Slavonic, but I did not conduct any agitation against the Soviet government. And I never baptized children anywhere, but sometimes they would ask me to baptize, and I would just make the sign of the cross with my fingers, and I did nothing more... I only conducted religious rites at funerals, and I did not ask for money, only if they gave it themselves... When the church was already closed, there was a meeting, and at this meeting, we registered believers to go to the village council to reopen the church."

The false witnesses repeated their testimonies in the new court session, and Dmitry Yemelyanovich again rejected all of them. When the court debates ended, the prosecutor demanded that the defendant be sentenced to six years in a labor camp; the lawyer requested a reduction in the sentence, considering mitigating circumstances. Dmitry Yemelyanovich, addressing the court, said that he was a sick man and asked for a fair sentence. On the same day, the court decided: to sentence him to five years in a labor camp.

Dmitry Yemelyanovich filed a cassation appeal to the Supreme Court, in which he convincingly proved his innocence and that he was convicted based on the testimonies of false witnesses, and also asked to summon other witnesses from the residents of the village of Rossasno to give additional testimonies, but the court denied his request.

He was transferred from the prison in Orsha to Kazakhstan and arrived at the Karabas station of the Karaganda camp on May 11, 1941, from where he was assigned to the 5th Espin branch of the Karlag. Upon arrival at the camp, a medical examination determined that he was disabled.

There, he fell seriously ill and was admitted to the camp hospital on May 5, 1942, where he died the same day. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the camp cemetery of the Espin branch of Karlag.

On April 14, 1993, he was rehabilitated under the law of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and on December 20, 1994, he was rehabilitated by the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus.

He was canonized as a saint among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia for general church veneration in August 2000 at the Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church.