Deacon
Saint John was born on March 21, 1880, in the village of Vasilievskoye, Vologda Province, in the family of psalmist Alexander Preobrazhensky. In 1897, he graduated from the Vologda Spiritual School and was appointed as a psalmist in the Vasilievskaya Toshinskaya Church. In 1904, he was ordained as a deacon. In 1906, he was transferred to the Vlasyevskaya Church. In the 1920s, this church was closed, and he was directed to serve in the church in honor of the Great Martyr Paraskeva Piatnitsa. In 1929, he and his family were evicted from their home, and the authorities demanded that his wife divorce him. From that time, the family began to live separately on the means that Father John secretly provided to them.
In 1930, the authorities closed this church as well, and the deacon was appointed to serve in the Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos. In May 1937, a notice appeared in local newspapers about the closure of the Bogorodskoye Cemetery, which caused outrage among the parishioners. More than a hundred residents of Vologda signed a letter to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee asking not to close the cemetery, pointing out its significance for the relatives of those buried there.
On June 26, 1937, Bishop John arrived at the all-night vigil, who was perceived as a secret collaborator of the NKVD. The rector of the church, Archpriest Konstantin Bogoslovsky, refused him recognition. Soon after this, the clergymen, including Deacon John, were arrested. He was interrogated and accused of counter-revolutionary agitation.
On September 19, 1937, the NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years of imprisonment in a labor camp. Deacon John passed away in the Kargopol camp on June 11, 1938, and was buried in an unmarked grave.
