Alexander Rozhdestvensky

Saint Hieromartyr Alexander Rozhdestvensky (1874 to 1937) was a priest in the village of Pereslegino, in the Tver region, and was shot on 28 December 1937. He is commemorated on 28 December, on 7 February with the synaxis of the new martyrs, and on 18 July with the saints of Tver.

Alexander Alexandrovich Rozhdestvensky was born on 11 August 1874 into the family of the priest of Blagoveshchensky Pogost, Novotorzhok district, Tver province; he finished the seminary and in 1902 was ordained priest at the church of his native village, where he served until the beginning of the persecutions of the thirties.

In 1930 the authorities took all his property and then demanded a tax. Deprived of the means of life, Father Alexander could not pay it and for this, in 1932, he was sentenced to two years in a labour camp. Returning from the camp, he moved to the village of Pereslegino, Vysokovo district, and served at the church.

On 21 December 1937 an officer of the Vysokovo district section of the NKVD arrested him and questioned him the same day. There was nothing to accuse him of and they had no proof of any activity against the state, nor testimony; so the investigator himself wrote out all the charges on a template, almost sure that he would find "witnesses" to confirm all he had written. The investigator told him that he carried on counter-⁠revolutionary work against the order in the USSR and that he had supported "enemies of the people", such as Trotsky and Tukhachevsky; the priest answered that he had done no work in the sense of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation and had spoken with no one about enemies of the people; asked what work he had done with the church "twenty", he answered none. The "duty witnesses" called the next day signed the records drawn up by the investigator, and in two days the investigation was finished. On 26 December the NKVD troika sentenced him to death, and a day later, on 28 December 1937, he was shot.