Georgi Gapon
George Apolónovich Gapon (Russian: Георгий Аполлонович Гапон; 1870 – April 10, 1906) was a Russian Orthodox priest and popular leader of the working class before the Russian Revolution of 1905.
Early years
Gapon was the son of a rich farmer from the Poltava region. He was educated in a seminary. He married in 1896 and, after the death of his wife in 1898, he moved to St. Petersburg and graduated from the theological academy there in 1903.
Father Gapon organized the Assembly of Russian Industrial Workers of Saint Petersburg, sponsored by the Police Department and the secret police of Saint Petersburg, the Okhrana. The objectives of the Assembly were to defend the rights of workers and increase their moral and religious faith. Only those affiliated with the Orthodox confession could access their positions. Soon the organization would reach twelve divisions and eight thousand members, and Gapon sought to extend its activities to kyiv and Moscow.
Bloody Sunday
From the end of 1904, Gapon began to collaborate with radicals who defended the abolition of the tsarist autocracy. On January 9Jul./ January 22, 1905greg., one day later After the general strike broke out in Saint Petersburg, Gapon organized a workers' march in order to present a letter to the tsar, which would end on Bloody Sunday. His followers saved his life that day.
After these events, he excommunicated the emperor and urged the workers to act against the regime, but he would soon flee abroad, where he maintained close contact with the Social-Revolutionary Party. After the October Manifesto he returned to Russia and continued his relationship with the Okhrana.
Death
Suspected of being an agent provocateur, Gapón was hanged in a Finnish cabin at the hands of Pinhas Rutenberg, who had paradoxically marched with him on Bloody Sunday, thus carrying out a death sentence issued by the leadership of the Social-Revolutionary Party..