Sobor.md

In one of the previously published news we have written about Iakov Ioannovich Parabin. He used to be the priest of the Mikhail church in the Pogreby village during the period 1905-1918, when the St. Aleksey church was constructed in the same village. We tried to find his relatives and managed to do so.

The priest’s grandson Alexandr Iakovlevich Parabin lives in Chisinau. His father Iakov Parabin was born in 1911 exactly in the Pogreby village. This is confirmed by an extract from the register of the Mikhail church from Pogreby, which was signed by his father. Alexandr Iakovlevich family has several photos of the priest Parabin and his family, which are attached to this article. The wife of Alexandr Iakovlevich, Galina Viktorovna, has met the referent of the Tiraspol-Dubasari eparchy, Alferyeva Liudmila Pavlovna, and joining efforts they managed to compile the priest’s biography.

Iakov Ioannovich Parabin was born in 1871. Ioann Afanasyevich Parabin, who worked as a psalmist in the Dormition Cathedral in the Dubasari town, and his lawful wife Agripina Timofeevna were his parents. Iakov Parabin graduated from the Odessa religious school (the year of graduation is not known). He worked as psalmist in the period 1889-1899 and as deacon in the period 1899-1903. He was a psalmist in the Cocieri village (1892-1895, 1897-1998), a priest in the Rogi village (1903-1905), a priest in the Pogreby village (1905-1918) and a priest in the Magala village (1919-1933). In 1933-1934 he was subject to repression, being exiled to Pervomaysk, currently placed in the Nikolaev oblast of Ukraine. No information about his death is available yet.

The brother of Iakov Parabin, Ioann Parabin, worked as a psalmist of the Mikhail church in the Pogreby village during the period 1891-1892. At the same time Maxim Kulpinskii worked in this church as a priest. Probably, there the young Iakov Parabin got to know his daughter Vera Maximovna Kulpinskii, who became his lawful wife in 1892. It is known that 12 children were born during their marriage.

Iakov Ioannovich Parabin was one of those who signed the insurance valuation of the St. Aleksey church, carried out in 1913, which was discovered in St. Petersburg archive. Below we would like to present the whole text of this valuation:

Insurance valuation

“On 28 May 1913 we, the undersigned, have carried out the valuation of the buildings of the Mikhail church in the Pogreby village, Dubasari okrug (district), Tiraspol uyezd, Kherson eparchy. During the buildings’ examination it turned out that the following buildings belong to the Mikhail church (at the same time we transferred the old Russian non-metrical measure of length -  sazhen – in metres):

Description of buildings:

Aleksey church is a limestone building painted with coloured lime, plastered inside, iron covered, colored with green oil-base paint. The church length together with the bell tower is 17 sazhenii (approximately 36 metres), its height till the top of the bell tower is 9 sazhenii (approximately 19 metres) and the width is 10 sazhenii (approximately 21 metres). The church has two big and four small cupolas, two big windows sized 2,7*0,8 (approximately 5,75*1,75 m), four windows sized 1,6*0,7 (approximately 3,4*1,5 m), two windows sized 1,5*0,5 (approximately 3,2*1,0 m), two windows sized 1,3*0,65 (approximately 2,75*1,4 m), four windows sized 1,2*0,45 (approximately 2,5*1,0 m), six windows sized 0,9*0,45 (approximately 2,0*1,0 m) and one window sized 0,8*0,45 (approximately 1,7*1,0 m), six big double-wing doors and six single-wing doors, three big iron-sheathed doors; iconostasis has a length of 16 arshins (approximately 11,5 m) and the height of 8 arshins (approximately 5,5 m) (the valuated cost is three thousand Rubbles) the bell tower has three tiers, with the height till the cornice of 9 sazhenii (approximately 19 m), there is a stranger building inside the church territory -  peasant house is placed at a distance of 11 sazhenii (approximately 23,5 m). The church was built in 1912. The building is solid, the iconostasis is new. The valuated cost, including the iconostasis and the bell tower, is 30000 Rubbles.

The valuation was made by:

Archpriest – Alexandr Sinkevich
Priest – Iakov Parabin
Priest – Alexandr Chegoryan
Churchwarden - Isai Osipov
Psalmist – absent

Representatives of the parish – Ivan Tanasenko”

If we take the text of this valuation verbatim, it may be concluded that the Aleksey church, as a building, belonged to the Mikhail church. However, only the Mikhail church is mentioned in all church registers, which certify the birth of people in Pogreby village during the period 1913-1918, while the Aleksey church “came to light” only in 1923. How it could happen that during more than 10 years there were two church buildings in a small parish and the recently built majestic building of the Aleksey church during this period was mentioned nowhere? So far we do not have an answer to this question.