Alexander Blokhin

Saint Alexander Blokhin (born 1879) was a peasant of the village of Pokrov, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, and was shot on 17 September 1937, together with four priests and three peasants of the Gagino district. He is commemorated on 17 September, on 7 February with the synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church, and on 12 September with the saints of Nizhny Novgorod.

On 8 September 1937 clergy and believers of the Gagino district, Nizhny Novgorod region, were arrested, ten in all. None admitted guilt. They were accused of having organized on 6 July a solemn service at which four priests and a multitude of believers took part. Although no sermon on a political theme was given after the service, the service itself was regarded as an act against the state, because it drew the peasants away from work on the collective farm. On 17 September 1937 eight of them were sentenced to death and shot.

Their names are kept in the investigation files: the priest John Dmitrievich Romashkin (born 1891, of a peasant family, first arrested in 1928 and sentenced to three years of exile; he served in the village of Subbotino); the priest Peter Ivanovich Lebedinsky of the village of Sorochki (born 1881 into a priest's family, sentenced in 1935 to two years of exile for sermons); the priest Nicholas Alexandrovich Khvoshchev of the village of Yusupovo (born 1883 into a priest's family); the priest Alexander Semyonovich Nikolsky of the village of Panovo-⁠Osanovo (born 1883 into a priest's family); and the peasants of the village of Pokrov Alexander Ivanovich Blokhin (born 1879), Peter Vasilyevich Lonskov (born 1881), Stefan Semyonovich Mityushin (born 1874) and Vasily Kireevich Yezhov (born 1867, arrested in 1930 for non-⁠payment of taxes and sentenced to five years in the camp).