Veniamin (Kazansky) (1873-1922), metropolitan, priest -martyr, clergy figure

Subject / Religion. Church/Personnel
Benjamin (Vasily Pavlovich Kazansky; 1873-1922), a metropolitan, priest -martyr. He was born in the family of a priest. In 1887 Vasily Kazansky finished the Kargopol Ecclesiastical College, in 1893 he was graduated from the Olonets Ecclesiastical Seminary and 1897 he was graduated from the St. Petersburg Ecclesiastical Academy; he was a Doctor of Theologics. He took active part in the work of the Society of Dissemination of the Religious and Moral Education. In 1895 he took the monastic vows, became a hierodeacon, since he had been a hieromonk. He was a teacher of the Riga Ecclesiastical Seminary in 1897, an inspector of the Kholmsky Ecclesiastical Seminary in 1898. In 1899 he worked as an inspector of the St. Petersburg Ecclesiastical Seminary and from 1905 he became the Head of the seminary; from 1902 Benjamin was the Head of the Samara Ecclesiastical Seminary and an archimandrite. From 24 January 1910 Benjamin became the bishop of the town of Gdov, the fourth vicar of the St. Petersburg Eparchy. He often preached at the factory outskirts of the capital and in parishes of his suffragancy. Benjamin was the first archiereus who performed early liturgies with public singing. He was the chairman of the Eparchy College Council during 1910-1917 and the chairman of the Eparchy Brotherhood of the Mother of God, managed the eparchy church schools affairs. Benjamin often headed many-thousand processions of teetotallers, including processions in the Luga uyezd. From 1914 Benjamin became the first vicar of the St. Petersburg Eparchy, on 6 March 1917 he assumed the temporary government of the eparchy, on 24 May he was elected an archbishop of the Petrograd cathedra. On 13-14 August 1917 Benjamin was risen to the rank of Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Gdov. From 25 September 1918 Benjamin was a member of the holy Synod. He struggled against closing domestic churches and monasteries of the eparchy. On 1 June 1922 benjamin was arrest and brought to trial on the case ""About putting up resistance on withdrawing church valuables"", on 5 July he was sentence to extreme penalty by the Petrograd Gubernia Revolution tribunal. On 13 August Benjamin was shot and buried in the Rzhevsky artillery testing site (the Vsevolozhsk district). On 31 October 1990 Benjamin was rehabilitated, in 1992 he was canonized at the Assembly of Hierarches. Shkarovsky, Mikhail Vitalyevich
Veniamin (Kazansky), metropolitan
Historical Toponyms/Saint Petersburg Gubernia, the/Luga Uyezd
Leningrad Oblast, the/Vsevolozhsk District
«Дело» митрополита Вениамина (Петроград, 1922 г.). М., 1991
Бовкало А.А., Галкин А.К. Священномученик митрополит Вениамин // С.-Петербургские епархиальные ведомости. 1993. № 11., С. 65-71
Коняев Н. Священномученик Вениамин митрополит Петроградский (документальное повествование). СПб., 1997, С. 65-71