Presbyter
Saint Paul was born on 20 June 1867 in the village of Borodino, in the Mozhaisk District of Moscow. He graduated from a theological school and, in 1896, was ordained a deacon at the Cathedral of the Resurrection. In the early 1920s, he was ordained a priest at the same church.
On 17 November 1932, the authorities arrested Father Paul, accusing him of “organizing a counter-revolutionary anti-Soviet group.” Following his arrest, he was held in Mozhaisk Prison.
On 16 February 1933, he was sentenced to three years of exile in Kazakhstan. On 17 January 1934, he was released and returned home. That same year, the Renovationists seized the Church of the Resurrection, which was subsequently closed.
Upon returning to Mozhaisk, Father Paul did not serve in any church. He lived with the support of his children and continued to meet with the city’s clergy. On 5 December 1937, he was arrested and accused of “establishing contacts with priests and monks of counter-revolutionary ideology.” On 9 December, the NKVD troika sentenced him to death.
Father Paul Ponyatsky was executed on 15 December 1937 at the Butovo shooting range and buried in an unknown mass grave.
