Alexander Nikolsky

Saint Hieromartyr Alexander Nikolsky (1883 to 1937) was a priest in the village of Panovo-⁠Osanovo, in the Gorky region, and was shot on 17 September 1937, together with a group of clergy and laymen of the Gagino district. He is commemorated on 1 November, on 7 February with the synaxis of the new martyrs, and on 12 September with the saints of Nizhny Novgorod. He was numbered among the saints in the year 2000.

Alexander Semyonovich Nikolsky was born in 1883 in the village of Kognurovo, in the Nizhny Novgorod province, into a priest's family. He served as priest in the village of Panovo-⁠Osanovo, Gagino district, Gorky region. On 8 September 1937 he was arrested together with the priests John Romashkin, Peter Lebedinsky and others. The arrested were held first in the Gagino lockup, then moved to the Arzamas prison. All were accused of having organized, on 6 July 1937, on the day of the commemoration of the icon of the Mother of God of Vladimir, in memory of the deliverance of Moscow from the invasion of Khan Akhmat in 1480, a solemn service that was said to have drawn the peasants away from work on the collective farm. Although after the service, in which four priests and a multitude of believers took part, no sermon on a political theme was given, the service itself was regarded as an act against the state, because it drew the peasants away from work on the collective farm "Svoboda".

On 17 September 1937 eight people, after tortures and interrogations, were sentenced to death and shot. The exact place of the shooting and burial of the martyrs' bodies has not been learned. The priest Alexander Nikolsky was numbered among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia by the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000. With him died the priests John Romashkin, Nicholas Khvoshchev and Peter Lebedinsky and the peasants Vasily Yezhov, Peter Lonskov, Stefan Mityushin and Alexander Blokhin.