Deacon
Saint Martyr Nicholas Ponomarev was born in 1867 and after finishing the folk school in 1885 became a psalmist in the Nikolaev Church of the village of Osintsevsky in the Irbit district. On September 18, 1902, he was transferred to the church in honor of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Shogryshsky, where he spent the rest of his life. The village of Shogryshsky, surrounded by peat bogs, was founded in the first half of the 17th century.
The stone church was built with the funds of the parishioners in the first third of the 19th century. By the beginning of the 20th century, about four thousand residents lived in the village, among whom there were no schismatics. The inhabitants engaged in agriculture and various crafts. Nicholas Ponomarev was ordained to the deaconate in August 1916 and continued his ministry in Shogryshsky.
In 1918, after the establishment of Soviet power, arrests of clergymen began. In the summer of 1918, martial law was introduced in the Irbit district, and the situation became increasingly tense. On July 28/August 10, on the day of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God, Nicholas was sent to public works and was soon killed by the Bolsheviks. The exact date and place of his death are unknown, but it presumably occurred in the village of Shogryshsky or at the Yegorshino station.
In late 1918 - early 1919, Father Nicholas's name was included in the list of murdered clergymen of the Yekaterinburg diocese. In 2002, Saint Martyr Nicholas was glorified in the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia from the Yekaterinburg diocese.
