Alexander Orlov

Saint Alexander Orlov, hieromartyr, was an archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church and was shot on 13 October 1937, at the Butovo firing range near Moscow. On 12 October 2007 the Holy Synod numbered him among the saints, the new martyrs of Russia, for veneration throughout the Church. He is commemorated on 30 September by the old calendar (13 October on the new style).

He was born on 6 August 1885 in the village of Khonyatino, Moscow governorate, in the family of the priest of the church of Saint George, Basil Ilyich Orlov. He finished the theological school at Kolomna (1901) and then the theological seminary of Moscow (1909). In 1911 he was ordained priest. From 1920 to 1923 he studied in the natural science department of the faculty of physics and mathematics of Moscow University. From 1923 he lived with his family in the village of Semyonovskoe, in the house of his father-⁠in-⁠law, the priest Alexander Krylov. From 1924 he served at the church of the Holy Trinity in the village of Troitse-⁠Golenishchevo in the Moscow district, and at the same time at the house of prayer in the village of Matveevskaya, closed in 1929.

On 12 February 1932 he was arrested and put in Butyrka prison. On a charge of anti-⁠Soviet activity, on 8 May 1932 the troika attached to the OGPU representation sentenced him to three years in a labour camp, which he served at Medvezhyegorsk, on the building of the White Sea-⁠Baltic Canal. From 1934 he lived in the village of Teremets (Mikhnevo district), from 1935 in the village of Georgievsky Pogost (Klin district), then in the village of Pavlovskaya Sloboda (Istra district). In 1936, after the death of his father-⁠in-⁠law, he moved to his family in the village of Semyonovskoe. He was raised to the rank of archpriest. He served services in homes, since the church was closed.

On 10 September 1937 he was arrested and put in Taganka prison. On a charge of counter-⁠revolutionary activity, on 9 October the NKVD troika sentenced him to death by shooting. He was shot and buried on 13 October 1937 at the Butovo range near Moscow. On 25 April 1958 he was rehabilitated. His wife was Sophia Alexandrovna (née Krylova), and their daughter Maria was born in 1920.