Crucifixion of Joachim of Nizhny-Novgorod

Archbishop Joachim of Nizhny-Novgorod was crucified upside down on the Royal Doors of the Cathedral in Sebastopol in the Ukraine (Soviet Union) in 1920.

Joachim was born John Ioakimovich Levitsky on March 30, 1853 in the village of Petrushek, Kiev. In August 1910, he was appointed Bishop of Nizhny-Novgorod and Arzamas. On May 6, 1916 he was raised to the rank of Archbishop. On March 22, 1918 he was retired from his see at his own request and was appointed administrator, with the rights of superior, of the Resurrection monastery at New Jerusalem in Moscow diocese.

In the autumn, Joachim went to visit his son and his family in the Crimea. He was often invited from there to serve in the churches of Sebastopol. Once, when all the inhabitants of the house had gone out and he was alone, some unknown people who were supposedly robbers, but were in fact sent by the local Bolsheviks, appeared. According to the witness of a Crimean priest, he was martyred by being hanged with his head down on the royal doors of the Sebastopol cathedral.