Alexander Elokhovsky

Saint Hieromartyr Alexander Elokhovsky (1858 to 1918) was a priest in the Yaroslavl province and was shot by the Bolsheviks on 3 September 1918. He is commemorated on 3 September, on 7 February with the synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church, and on 5 June with the saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl. He was numbered among the saints in the year 2000.

Alexander Petrovich Elokhovsky was born on 22 October 1858 in the village of Ryazanino, Spaso-⁠Yaryzhets volost, Yaroslavl district, into the family of the village priest. After the church school he entered the teachers' seminary in the village of Novoe, to become a teacher, but could not finish it (at that time a revolutionary group had been discovered in the seminary, and apparently for this reason he could not complete his studies) and in 1879 he received a place as assistant teacher at the school in Ivanovskoe, Rostov district. After passing the examination for primary school teacher he was a village teacher for eight years. There he married Alevtina Dmitrievna, and their first son, Peter, was born.

On 10 March 1887, taking account of his "very zealous performance of the duties of a teacher", Archbishop Jonathan of Yaroslavl and Rostov ordained him deacon at the church in the village of Gubychevo, Uglich district, and then he received a place as deacon at the church in Ermakovo, Poshekhonye district. On 2 December 1902 he was ordained priest at the church of the Protection in the village of Vysotskoe, and served there eight years, also teaching religion at the parish school. The family now had four children: Peter, Maria, Dmitri and Lyubov. In 1910 he became priest of the church of the Presentation of the Lord in his native village of Ryazanino and teacher of religion at the local school.

On 25 August 1918 the father was arrested by Chekists on a charge of "anti-⁠Soviet agitation" and imprisoned in the Korovniki prison in Yaroslavl; apparently he was repressed in connection with the Yaroslavl uprising of July 1918. On the list of prisoners of the Yaroslavl prison for 1918 he appeared under number 60. On 3 September 1918 the confessor of the faith of Christ was shot by the Bolsheviks and buried in a common grave at the Leontievsky cemetery in Yaroslavl.