Presbyter
Saint Martyr Vasily was born on March 29, 1870, in the village of Kazan, Bogorodsky district of Moscow province, in the family of priest Pavel Smirnov. In 1890, he graduated from the Moscow Theological Seminary and became a teacher at the Spasskaya parish school. From 1892, he served as a psalmist in the Nikolai-Zayatsky church in Moscow, where he began teaching the Law of God in 1901. On March 11, 1907, he was ordained as a deacon, and on December 28, 1914, as a priest. In 1929, he became the rector of the Nikolai-Zayatsky church, serving until its closure in 1933. He then served in the church in honor of the icon of the Mother of God 'Sign' in the village of Znamensky.
On March 16, 1938, he was arrested based on a denunciation and imprisoned in Taganka prison. During interrogations, he refused to admit guilt, asserting that he had not committed counter-revolutionary agitation. On June 7, 1938, the NKVD troika sentenced him to execution. Priest Vasily Smirnov was shot on July 1, 1938, and buried in an unmarked grave at the Butovo firing range near Moscow.
