Presbyter
Saint John was born on May 21, 1872, in the village of Gridino, in the Bronnitsky district of Moscow province. He graduated from the Kolomna Theological School in 1888 and the Moscow Theological Seminary in 1894. On August 24, 1898, he was ordained a priest at the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in the village of Kuzovlevo. In 1922, he was appointed rector of the Ascension Church in the village of Ryblovo, where he served until his arrest in 1937.
During the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church, the authorities demanded that the priest pay taxes and recorded him as a kulak. In 1931, after the confiscation of property, Father John was arrested and sentenced to three years of exile. Upon completion of his sentence, he returned and continued his ministry.
On November 28, 1937, he was arrested by the NKVD and imprisoned in Taganka prison. During interrogation, he refused to admit guilt in counter-revolutionary activities. On December 3, 1937, the NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years of imprisonment in a corrective labor camp.
Priest John Streltzov passed away on March 14, 1938, in a corrective labor camp in the Amur region and was buried in an unmarked grave.
