Hieromartyr Basil was born on January 28, 1887, in the village of Babka, Pavlovsk District, Voronezh Province, in the family of a peasant named Nikita Maximov. The family lived poorly, and in addition, Nikita fell seriously ill and became blind. Vasily grew up as a pious and obedient boy, and the local priest blessed him to serve in the altar. Once, on the patronal feast day, a visiting bishop performed a service in the church; he liked the pious boy, gifted with musical abilities, and he took him with him to the place of his service in Shadrinsk and sent him to a religious school. Vasily was then fourteen years old.

In Shadrinsk, he met his future wife Julia, who was studying at a music school at that time. Her father, priest Alexander Konev, served in the church at the Mysovaya station in the Irkutsk province.

In 1914, Vasily Nikitich was ordained a priest to one of the churches in the city of Shadrinsk, then transferred to a church in the city of Petropavlovsk. In 1923, Fr. Vasily moved to Moscow and was assigned to the Church of the Great Martyr Nikita in the village of Kabanovo, Orekhovo-Zuevo District, Moscow Province. For his impeccable and zealous service to the Church, Fr. Vasily was elevated to the rank of archpriest and subsequently awarded a mitre and appointed dean.

In Kabanovo there were several houses belonging to the church: the houses of the priest and the deacon, the parochial school and a small gatehouse, where the pious maiden Euphemia Vishnyakova lived with her father, the watchman. A rope from the bell tower was stretched into their room, so that in case of thieves entering the temple, the watchman could ring the bell. Of the church buildings, by 1923, only the priest's house and the gatehouse remained behind the church.

Archpriest Vasily settled with his family in a large priest's house. Father Vasily often served; At each service he delivered sermons, for which he always carefully prepared the day before, using his large library. Father Vasily knew that his sermons reached the hearts of parishioners and therefore were not liked by the civil authorities, but he considered the education of his flock to be his inalienable duty. The people understood that the priest was in a dangerous position, and appreciated that he did not tire of preaching the truths of Christ. The parishioners trusted their priest and knew that in this difficult time they were not alone and not abandoned and could always turn to him for help and support. And he, in turn, tried to fully serve the people of the church, and at every request he went to unction and communion those who could not come to church.

In 1927, the priest suffered a misfortune – on June 10, his wife Julia, who was only thirty-two years old, died. She pricked a pimple on her chin, blood poisoning began, and without being sick for a week, she died. Father Vasily was left with three children - daughters Maria and Nina, ten and four years old, and son Nikolai, who was not even two years old. For Father Vasily, this was a difficult test, because he and his wife lived soul to soul and she was his first assistant. At first after the death of his wife, he could not sleep, and sometimes, as soon as the children fell asleep, he went to his wife's grave and prayed for a long time. It happened that the children woke up, but the father was not there, he was at the grave of the mother. These experiences subsequently had a heavy impact on the priest's health.

In the late twenties, a fire broke out in the village, several houses burned down at once. Father Vasily ceded the large church house to the families of the victims of the fire, and he moved to a small house on the outskirts of the village, the owners of which invited a priest with children. Later he went to live in the church gatehouse, where Euphemia lived with her father on one half, and Father Vasily and his children settled on the other. Euphemia took upon herself the care of the children and tried to replace their mother.

In 1934, Father Vasily wrote to his niece in Almaty: "They sent us a tax of 360 rubles, and 55 rubles to be paid by March 15. Only half of it was paid. Thank you, they help, otherwise it would be bad. Someday I will pay the second one. Now it's fasting, people are coming, and we need to satisfy it. Today the singers sang. And there were sixty people who were fasting. It is very difficult, and I get tired, but I also feel good: after all, people are satisfied. They love and help me, and I give them all my strength."

His labors and experiences slowly undermined the priest's health. In 1935, Father Vasily went to Moscow on church business with two parishioners, altar servers Vasily and Nikolai, who helped him a lot in the work on the church. All of them stayed with his daughter Maria, who lived at that time in Moscow near the Danilov cemetery. Here Father Vasily developed hemoptysis, and it became clear that his health condition could soon become critical. He went to the hospital and was told that he had a tuberculosis process in his lungs and needed to be treated immediately. The doctors explained what to do, and the priest went home. There was little hope that the caverns would heal and he would be cured.

Father Vasily was saved by the love of the parishioners. As soon as they found out that the priest was seriously ill, he was overwhelmed with food, and there was even a queue in the village to bring what food, the parishioners supplied him with everything he needed, if only Father Vasily recovered. Whether thanks to these products, which supported the physical strength of the priest, or thanks to the love that the parishioners showed for their priest, he was completely healed of tuberculosis.

The year 1937 came. News began to come from everywhere about the arrests of priests and laity. The threat of arrest also loomed over Archpriest Vasily. The authorities repeatedly suggested that the priest leave the church and, knowing that he had a beautiful and strong voice, offered him a job as an actor in the theater, but Father Vasily rejected these offers as ridiculous. He began to prepare for arrest and burned the most precious thing for him - the diary of his late wife.

In the middle of the night of August 22-23, 1937, there was a knock on the door of the half of the gatehouse where the priest's family lived. Father Vasily opened it. NKVD officers entered the house and told the priest to pack up and follow them. The children woke up. Father Vasily began to get ready. They did not arrange a search.

Leaving the house with the priest, one of the NKVD officers closed the front door with a stick so that the children could not go out after their father. The car was far from the house, and you had to go to it. Before leaving, Father Vasily asked permission to go to his wife's grave and pray. He was allowed. He prayed and went to the car.

Euphemia watched everything that happened from her half; As soon as she saw that everyone was gone, she immediately went to the other half of the children and began to calm them down and console them. However, they were too young to understand that their loving father had left them forever. From that time on, Euphemia took upon herself the care and care of the children.