Alexander Medvedev

Saint Hieromartyr Alexander Medvedev (1889 to 1918) was a deacon in the village of Bolshe-⁠Trifonskoe, in the Irbit district, and was hacked with sabres by Red Guards, without trial, on 10 September 1918, at Yegorshino station. He is commemorated on 10 September, on 7 February with the synaxis of the new martyrs, and on 11 February with the saints of Yekaterinburg. He was numbered among the saints in 2002.

He was born in 1889. He studied at the school for psalm-⁠readers in Yekaterinburg, without finishing it. He began early to serve in the church, first as sacristan, and from 1 July 1910 was admitted as psalm-⁠reader at the church of Saint John the Baptist in Bolshe-⁠Trifonskoe. Just before the revolution he was ordained deacon and served in the same village until his martyr's death.

Most of the villagers had strong farms and were well-⁠off, or, as the Bolsheviks called them, "kulaks". The October Revolution did not win their sympathy. The Committee of the Poor, set up by the Bolsheviks for requisitions of food and goods, met resistance from the majority of the villagers; the peasants did not want to submit and give bread and goods for the needs of the Red Army. The Bolsheviks considered the clergy to blame for the peasants not recognizing Soviet power, and sought to undermine the authority of the Church, saying that religion was not needed by the people. Everywhere churches were desecrated and reprisals were made on their servants.

Father Alexander, twenty-⁠seven years old, continued his service as deacon at Bolshe-⁠Trifonskoe, although reprisals against the clergy went on without a break in the summer of 1918. He served together with the priest Peter Snezhnitsky, who also did not leave his parish in those terrible days. On 28 August (10 September) 1918 the deacon Alexander Medvedev was killed, without trial, by Red Guards at Yegorshino station: they hacked him with sabres. By decision of the Holy Synod of 17 July 2002, the deacon Alexander Medvedev was numbered in the synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia.