Alexander Bykov

Saint Alexander Bykov, hieromartyr, was a priest of the Russian Church and was shot on 27 November 1937 at the Butovo firing range near Moscow. In August 2000 the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church numbered him among the new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church, for veneration throughout the Church. He is commemorated on 14 November.

He was born on 8 August 1881 in the village of Kelia, now in the Moscow region. His father, Jacob Bykov, was engaged in trade, and Alexander helped him in the business. He finished the zemstvo school but educated himself mostly on his own. He married Maria. By 1910 they had three daughters, Catherine, Sophia and Vera, and in all they had ten children. From 1908 he lived in Moscow and owned a flower shop and greenhouses in which he grew flowers. After the upheaval of 1917, when the godless came to power, he became a psalm-⁠reader at the church in the village of Shcheglyatievo in the Moscow governorate. On 23 November 1921 he was ordained deacon.

He served in Moscow at the church on Bolshaya Dmitrovka. From 10 February 1926 he served at the church of the Entry of the Mother of God into the Temple in the village of Khanevo, Volokolamsk district. On 18 June 1930 Bishop John (Vasilevsky) of Voskresensk ordained him priest at the church of the Sign in the village of Sudnikovo, Lotoshino district. As priest Father Alexander served at the church in Khanevo until the day of his arrest.

On 29 October 1937 the chairman of the local collective farm was questioned as a witness, and the investigators also called the chairman of the neighbouring collective farm. Father Alexander was arrested and put in Taganka prison in Moscow on 12 November 1937. On 23 November 1937 he was sentenced to death by the NKVD troika. Father Alexander was shot at the Butovo range on 27 November 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave. On 24 June 1989 the prosecutor of the Moscow region rehabilitated him.