Presbyter
Grigory Semyonovich Garyaev was born in 1878 in the village of Pyanteg, Cherdyn District, Perm Province, into the family of a priest. He received his primary education at a school for peasant children, whose classes were held in his father’s home.
In 1900, after graduating from the Perm Theological Seminary, Grigory was vested in the sticharion and appointed psalm-reader at the Prophet Elijah Church in the village of Nikulino, Perm District. In the same year, he married the maiden Vera Vasilievna. They had eight children.
In August 1900, at the Transfiguration Cathedral in the city of Perm, he was ordained to the diaconate, and on September 10 he was ordained to the priesthood and assigned to the Saints Peter and Paul Church in the village of Kosmo-Damianskoye, Solikamsk District.
In December 1903, at the request of the parishioners and upon his own petition, Father Grigory was transferred to the Savior Church in the city of Solikamsk, where he served until his arrest in 1918.
While fulfilling his duties as a parish priest in a large single-staff parish, Father Grigory zealously carried out various obediences. He served on the Board of the Solikamsk Theological School, was a member of the deanery council, and taught the Law of God in parish and secular schools.
His diligent service was marked by church awards: the nabedrennik, skufia, and kamilavka.
In 1918, during the period of mass repression in the Perm Province, Priest Grigory Garyaev was arrested and taken to the city of Perm.
On the night of September 8, 1918 (September 21 according to the new style), on the Feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, he was taken outside Perm and, after traveling three versts along the Siberian Tract, was shot, having first been beaten half to death. The body of the martyr was thrown into a mass grave arranged nearby, by the roadside, at a refuse dump.
On October 9, 1918, three weeks after the execution, the Bolshevik newspaper Izvestia published a list of persons shot “in response to an attempt on members of the Extraordinary Commission.” Under No. 21 appeared: “Gorlyaev [Garyaev] Semyon Grigorievich — a Black-Hundred priest.”
After Perm was liberated from Bolshevik rule by the White Army, an investigation into their crimes began. On May 8, 1919, by order of the investigators, eight bodies were exhumed at the fourth verst of the Siberian Tract — seven clergymen and one layman. The remains were taken to the Perm City anatomical morgue for identification. The body of Priest Grigory Garyaev was identified by his brother only by the embroidered letters “G. G. S.” on his clothing, since his face was unrecognizable from beatings.
The funeral service for the slain clergymen, held on May 13, 1919, at the Holy Trinity Slud Church, was led by His Grace Boris (Shipulin), Bishop of Cheboksary, who was temporarily administering the Perm Diocese.
After the service, in the presence of many worshippers, the coffins with the bodies of the martyrs were carried along Monastyrskaya Street to the Transfiguration Cathedral and buried behind its altar, in the Bishops’ Cemetery.
Priest Grigory Garyaev was glorified among the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in 2000. His feast day is celebrated on September 9/22.
