Ioann Ilyich Ganchev

Ioann Ilyich Ganchev was born in 1878 in the village of Sima, Yurievsky Uyezd, Vladimir Province.

He graduated from the Petrograd Theological Seminary. During his studies, he attended art courses. Later, as a pastor, he enjoyed painting landscapes and biblical scenes in his spare time.

In 1910, he was ordained as a priest and sent to Azerbaijan, where he was appointed rector of the Church of the Bogolyubskaya Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Alexandrovka, Kubinsky Uyezd, Baku Province.

In 1911, he was transferred to serve as rector of the Nativity of the Theotokos Cathedral in Baku.

Father Ioann had an extensive library, dedicating an entire room to it. Versatile and talented, he played the harmonium, enjoyed drawing, and had a deep knowledge of medicine. He generously shared these gifts with people. As a trustee of one of the hospitals, he personally ensured that patients received proper treatment and often provided qualified assistance himself.

In 1913, his son Yuri was born, followed by a daughter, Lyudmila, a year later.

In the 1920s, with the blessing of Bishop Pavel (Vilkovsky), Father Ioann left Baku and moved with his family to his brother, who worked as a notary in the city of Lenkoran.

After the death of Father Alexei Ponomarev, the priest of the Church of the Joy of All Who Sorrow Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Prishib near Lenkoran, Father Ioann was appointed rector of this church. Father Ioann painted his church himself.

In 1933, the authorities closed the church. Father Ioann left his family in Lenkoran and returned to Baku. Before his arrest, he worked as an epidemiological paramedic for the sanitary organization of the October District in Baku.

On the night of March 20, 1933, the entire Ganchev family, including Father Ioann, was arrested. They were held in separate high-security cells in one of Baku's prisons. Father Ioann, his wife, brother, son, and daughter, who were 18-19 years old at the time, were forced to sleep on a cold concrete floor without even a thin blanket. The authorities took all their clothing, documents, and personal belongings from their home.

On September 10, 1933, Father Ioann was sentenced by the OGPU Collegium for "counter-revolutionary and espionage activities" and "intending to flee illegally to Persia from the Azerbaijan SSR" (under articles 58-6, 10, 12 of the Criminal Code) and exiled to Kazakhstan for five years. In signing the indictment protocol, Father Ioann wrote: "In my soul and heart, I have always been against the Soviet government, but never in my actions."

The Ganchev family, having spent six months in prison without any charges, was released, but they had nowhere to return to—their room had already been occupied by a "participant in the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan." The fate of their father was learned by Father Ioann's children only 50 years later.

In his place of exile in the city of Chimkent, Father Ioann was deprived of the right to conduct services. His correspondence was officially censored. In March 1936, after his exile ended, Father Ioann Ganchev was returning to Baku, where his family lived. On the way, he was arrested, sent to the city of Chimkent, sentenced by the NKVD to three years in a labor camp, and sent to the Karaganda camp.

On September 19, 1937, he was arrested in the camp on the grounds that he

"headed a group of believers, former priests, conducted services where he spread his sentiments against the Soviet government: '...One must wish and I very much want the fascists to defeat the Bolsheviks in Spain. This defeat would fundamentally change the situation in the USSR.' ...Ganchev spread information that Tsar Nicholas was not shot but lived in England..." He did not admit guilt in the charges presented.

By a decision of the Troika of the NKVD for the Karaganda region on October 31, 1937, he was sentenced to the highest measure of punishment—execution by shooting.

He was executed on November 2, 1937, and buried in a mass grave at the old cemetery in the village of Dolinka, Karaganda region.

On December 30, 1957, he was rehabilitated by the Presidium of the Karaganda Regional Court for the 1937 repressions.

On May 22, 1989, he was rehabilitated by the Military Prosecutor's Office of the Transcaucasian Military District for the 1933 repressions.

He was glorified as a New Martyr and Confessor of Russia by the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000.