Presbyter
Saint Nicholas was born on April 24, 1876, in the city of Vyazma, Smolensk province. In 1895, he graduated from the Vyazma Spiritual School, and in 1902 – from the Vifansk Spiritual Seminary. Since 1910, he served in the church in the village of Budayevo, then in the village of Fedotkovo, and in the church in the village of Maryinskoye. From 1931, he served in the village of Nekrasovo, where he was elevated to the rank of protopresbyter.
In the spring of 1937, persecutions against the Russian Orthodox Church began. On June 28, 1937, local authorities sent complaints to the NKVD about Father Nicholas for performing sacraments without permission. On November 19, 1937, he was arrested and imprisoned in a prison in Mozhaisk. On December 5, 1937, the NKVD troika sentenced him to execution. Protopresbyter Nicholas Zabolotsky was shot on December 15, 1937, and buried in an anonymous mass grave at the Butovo firing range near Moscow.
