Alexander Gnevushev

Holy Hieromartyr Alexander Gnevushev (Alexander Fyodorovich Gnevushev) was a priest of the Russian Church, born in the village of Russkaya Tsilna, in the Simbirsk district, and shot at Ulyanovsk on 28 April 1930. He was numbered among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia on 17 August 2004, as a hieromartyr. He is remembered on 15 April on the old calendar (28 April on the new), and also on 21 May (3 June), in the Synaxis of the Simbirsk saints and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Russia.

Service

Our sources do not agree on the year of birth: the data entered give 1880, while the Russian biography says 23 September 1889, a year the 130th-⁠anniversary celebrations also count. He was born in the family of a priest. In 1912 he finished the Simbirsk seminary and was psalm-⁠reader at the church of his native village. On 9 March 1914 he was ordained priest and appointed rector of the church of the Nativity of Christ in the village of Aleikino, Simbirsk district. In January 1920 he was moved to the village of Kiyat, Buinsk district, but after a month was returned to his former church. On 20 July 1921, at the request of the inhabitants of Komarovka, a village neighbouring Aleikino, he was moved to the church of Saint Michael the Archangel in that village. In 1923 he was moved again, to the church of the Nativity of Christ in the village of Shumovka. Here he came into conflict with some of the Renovationist parishioners and was forced to go out of service. In July 1925 the new Bishop Vissarion (Zorin) appointed him rector of the church of Saint Paraskeva in the village of Bryandino, Melekess district, Samara province.

Martyrdom

In January 1930 local members of the "League of Militant Godless" came to Father Alexander to take the bells from the church and to "dekulakize" the priest. The activists took the priest's property, but the church community managed to defend its bells. At the beginning of February Father Alexander left for Ulyanovsk, and in the village arrests began of the parishioners who defended the church's property. The priest was put on the wanted list and arrested on 22 (or 23) February 1930. He was charged that he "is the leader of a kulak group, which systematically frustrated the measures of Soviet power, carried on vicious anti-⁠Soviet agitation and spread provocative rumours". On 15 April 1930 a special troika attached to the plenipotentiary representation of the OGPU found him guilty under article 58 of the criminal code of the RSFSR and sentenced him to death. The sentence was carried out on 28 April 1930.

Canonization and veneration

On 17 August 2004 the Holy Synod of the Russian Church, on the proposal of the Simbirsk diocese, numbered him among the holy new martyrs and confessors of Russia. On 23 September 2014, in Bryandino, a commemoration of him was held, with the unveiling of a plaque on the house where he lived from 1925 to 1930 and the laying of an avenue of memory beside the cross in the village park. On 30 January 2015 a prayer room in his honour was opened in the village. On 5 September 2016 the dome and cross were set on the building in which he lived and in which his church is to be. On 23 September 2020, in the village of Bryandino, Cherdaklinsky district, the great consecration of the church dedicated to Hieromartyr Alexander Gnevushev took place, performed by His Grace Diodor, bishop of Melekess and Cherdaklinsky.