Presbyter
Hieromartyr Nicholas Pongilsky was born in 1879 into the family of a clergyman of Yaroslavl Governorate. After graduating from the Yaroslavl Theological Seminary, he received holy orders and served as a regimental priest in the Russian Army.
In 1929, Father Nicholas was arrested for corresponding with Bishop Benjamin (Voskresensky) of Rybinsk and supporting the hierarch in exile by sending him money. The priest was sentenced to five years of imprisonment and sent to Siberian labor camps.
After his release, he served in the village of Bolshoye Titovskoye, living in a rented room at the home of an elderly parishioner. In 1940, after an incautious conversation with Komsomol girls, he was arrested again and sentenced to ten years for “praising the old tsarist system” and for “agitation against the measures of Soviet authority.” In 1941 he filed an appeal against the severity of the sentence, but it remained unanswered. Hieromartyr Nicholas reposed on August 6, 1942, in Corrective Labor Colony No. 3 in the city of Yaroslavl.
