The martyr Cyprian was born in 1875 in the village of Zelenoye in the Tambov province, into the family of a pious peasant, Grigory Annikov. From the age of eight, Cyprian began to sing in the kliros and never missed a single Sunday service; later he became a member of the church council of twenty, and then its chairman. In 1929 he began serving in the church as a psalm reader, and for this he was accused by the persecutors of the Church. His property was confiscated and he was deprived of civil rights. Cyprian Grigorievich submitted a petition to the authorities and appealed the unlawful decision — his property was returned and his rights restored. In August 1930 he left for Moscow and found work as a watchman at a warehouse of a fibrolite plant belonging to Labor Commune No. 2 of the OGPU, located in the buildings of the already closed Nikolo-Ugresha Monastery.
Since the monastic buildings, used for improper purposes, often caught fire, another fire broke out on October 19, 1932, during Cyprian Grigorievich’s watch: the warehouse of the fibrolite plant, where expensive equipment was stored, caught fire. Witnesses were questioned, and four of them were detained as suspects and taken to Butyrka prison.
On December 27, 1932, the investigation was completed. Cyprian was accused of having “committed arson of the fibrolite plant warehouse of Labor Commune No. 2 with imported equipment, being an opponent of Soviet power and acting out of revenge.”
On January 16, 1933, the OGPU Collegium sentenced him to ten years in a concentration camp.
On February 26, 1933, Cyprian Grigorievich was sent to the Novo-Ivanovskoye camp division. In the barrack where he lived there were three bishops, many clergy and believers, and in their free time they would gather behind the barrack to pray together. Most often these services were led by Archbishop Paulin (Kroshechkin) of Mogilev.
Testified as a witness on September 26, 1937, Matvey Boykov stated that he had known Archbishop Paulin since 1936, as he worked with him in the guarded settlement of the Novo-Ivanovskoye division. He repeatedly observed Kroshechkin together with Annikov and other inmates gathering behind the second tent to hold services, with prisoners assembling around them. After the services they would engage in anti-Soviet conversations, but stopped when he approached.
On October 1, 1937, Cyprian Grigorievich was presented with the investigator’s conclusion: “Cyprian Grigorievich Annikov, a kulak-psalm reader, is exposed as having taken part, while serving his sentence in the Novo-Ivanovskoye division of Siblag, in a counter-revolutionary group headed by Kroshechkin.”
On October 28, 1937, the NKVD troika of the Novosibirsk region sentenced the psalm reader Cyprian Grigorievich Annikov to execution. He was shot on November 3 together with Archbishop Paulin (Kroshechkin), priests and laymen, and buried in an unmarked common grave.
