Presbyter
Vasily Vasilyevich Malinin was born on March 26, 1898, in the village of Vasyanskoye of Tver Governorate, in the family of the priest Vasily Malinin. He studied at the Kashin Theological School and the Tver Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1918. In 1921 he was ordained to the priesthood in the church of the village of Konakovo, Tver Governorate.
In 1932 he was arrested under the decree of August 7, 1932, accused of stealing collective-farm straw, and sentenced to ten years in corrective labor camps. His family remained at home—his wife Antonina Alexandrovna and three children, aged seven, six, and two. The priest spent two years doing hard labor in the camp; in 1934 he was released early and returned to his church, where he resumed services. In 1934 Metropolitan Sergius awarded him a pectoral cross and appointed him dean (blagochinny).
In March 1937 the authorities demanded that the priest pay five hundred rubles as a tax; otherwise he would be arrested and the church closed. During a service, the priest addressed the parishioners, saying that the authorities were demanding payment of the tax, and asked them to raise the money and pay it. It was decided immediately in the church to collect the required sum; the money was gathered, and services in the church continued. On August 5, 1937, Fr. Vasily was arrested again. The charges included anti-Soviet agitation and collecting money from parishioners. During interrogations the priest did not plead guilty, stating that his work was aimed at the spiritual care of the faithful. On September 20 the NKVD troika sentenced him to execution by shooting, and the sentence was carried out on September 23, 1937.
He was numbered among the saints of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia for church-wide veneration at the Jubilee Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000.
