Alexander Eroshov

Saint Hieromartyr Alexander Eroshov (1884 to 1938) was a priest in the Kursk diocese and was shot on 1 June 1938, in the camp in the Far East, together with Archbishop Onuphrius of Kursk, Bishop Anthony of Belgorod and other clergy. He is commemorated on 1 June, on 7 February with the synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church, and on 1 August with the saints of Kursk.

He was born on 22 November 1884 in the village of Chernyanka, Novy Oskol district, Kursk province, into the family of the peasant Lupp Eroshov. From childhood he dreamed of serving the Church of Christ. In 1896 he finished the village school and went to Kiev, where for a long time he sang in a monastery choir and learned the typikon and the services thoroughly. In 1911 he was ordained deacon. In 1918 he finished the pastoral courses in Kharkov and was ordained priest. He served at the church of the Holy Trinity in the village of Olshanka, Novy Oskol district. In 1934 Bishop Anthony moved him to the Dormition church in the village of Bolshaya Khalan, Korocha district, Kursk region.

The authorities, wishing to close this church, demanded of the parish extra money, under the guise of taxes. The money was paid, but the church council pointed out that the action was unlawful and asked that the money be counted as the next year's taxes. The authorities, however, acted otherwise: on 22 February 1935 NKVD officers arrested Father Alexander. The investigator wrote in the record that he had received from Dean Mitrophan Vilgelmsky exhortations to strengthen his pastoral activity through sermons and services. Father Alexander had been signing the records without reading them, but, suspecting something, asked to write his answers himself; this was allowed, but when he got to know the file he did not find that record, and the investigator told him that he had destroyed it. At the trial the priest said that he did not admit guilt, that he had signed without reading, and that Vilgelmsky had given him no exhortation to increase sermons and prayer services, but had only asked what services he had.

On 11 September 1935 the sentence was read: Father Alexander Eroshov was sentenced to five years of imprisonment and sent to the Far East, to the same camp where Archbishop Onuphrius of Kursk and the priests condemned with him were held. In March 1938 the arrested men were moved from the camp to the prison in Blagoveshchensk. On 17 March 1938 the NKVD troika sentenced them to death. On 1 June 1938 Archbishop Onuphrius (Gagalyuk), Bishop Anthony (Pankeev), the priests Hippolytus Krasnovsky, Mitrophan Vilgelmsky, Alexander Eroshov, Michael Deineka, Nicholas Sadovsky, Basil Ivanov, Nicholas Kulakov, Maxim Bogdanov, Alexander Saulsky, Paul Popov, George Bogoyavlensky and the psalm-⁠reader Michael Voznesensky were shot and buried in an unmarked common grave.