Alexander Arkhangelsky

Holy Hieromartyr Alexander Arkhangelsky was an archpriest of the Russian Church. He was born on 1 February 1874 in the village of Soshki, Lipetsk district, Tambov province, and was shot on 2 August 1930 in the environs of Voronezh. He was rehabilitated in 1992 and numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000. His commemoration is on 2 August.

He was born into the family of the psalmist Nikolai Arkhangelsky. In 1896 he graduated from the Tambov seminary and served as psalmist in the churches of the city of Tambov. He married Ekaterina Kapitonovna Alekseyeva, the daughter of an archpriest. In 1904 he was ordained deacon at the church in the village of Storozhevye Vyselki, and two years later priest. When he was ordained priest, Father Alexander already had seven children, and when two peasants of the village died, he took two more orphans into his care.

He was a man who took no part in politics, and in 1918 he escaped arrest: when the authorities came for the priest, he left home and hid in neighbouring villages, then moved to Voronezh. From 1923 he was priest in the village of Lipovka in Voronezh province, where he served two and a half years, and from 1926 in the village of Mechetka. In 1927 he was raised to the rank of archpriest and appointed rector of the church of the Dormition of the Mother of God in Buturlinovka and dean of the Buturlinovka district.

On 8 April 1930 Father Alexander was summoned for interrogation and soon arrested, on a charge of belonging to a church-⁠monarchist organization aiming to raise a revolt against Soviet power and restore the monarchy. He was tried in the group case of Bishop Alexis (Buy), Voronezh, 1930. In spite of his explanations, oral and written, on 28 July 1930 the Collegium of the political police sentenced him to death. He was shot on 2 August 1930, at ten in the evening, in the environs of Voronezh.

On 30 December 1992 he was rehabilitated by the prosecutor's office of the Voronezh region. He was numbered in the Synaxis of the Saints of Voronezh and among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000, on the proposal of the Voronezh diocese.