Presbyter
Saint John was born on June 2, 1869, in the village of Zakharovo, Klin District. In 1890, he graduated from the Moscow Theological Seminary and began teaching in ecclesiastical schools. On March 2, 1892, he was ordained to the priesthood and went on to serve in several parishes throughout the Moscow region.
In 1934, he was appointed rector of the Church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos in the village of Uspenskoye, Noginsk District. Although the church had been closed in 1930, it was returned to the Orthodox community later that same year. He was subsequently transferred to the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in the village of Nesterovo, where he endured severe persecution at the hands of the Soviet authorities.
On February 10, 1938, Saint John was arrested and imprisoned in Taganka Prison. He was accused of engaging in anti-Soviet propaganda, but firmly denied all the charges brought against him. On February 19, the NKVD troika sentenced him to death.
Priest John Parushnikov was executed on March 7, 1938, and buried in an unmarked mass grave at the Butovo firing range near Moscow, where countless victims of the Soviet persecutions were laid to rest.
