Presbyter
Ivan Samsonovich Baranov was born in 1874 in the village of Rudnya-Pribytkovskaya, Gomel province. From 1895 to 1911, he served as a teacher, and in 1911, he was ordained as a priest. From 1914 to 1933, he served in the parish of the village of Golovichi. In 1933, he was arrested and sentenced to five years of exile in Kazakhstan, where he lived in the village of Tarkhanka. While in exile, he anonymously wrote letters to the newspaper 'Sputnik Agitatora', for which he was arrested again on November 5, 1937. The accusation: systematic anti-collective farm propaganda. On November 20, he was sentenced to death by shooting.
During the interrogation, he confirmed that the letters were written by him, but he did not oppose collectivization. In one of the letters, he defended religion and rejected materialism. The sentence was carried out on December 4, 1937.
