Alexander Sakharov

Saint Hieromartyr Alexander Sakharov (1873 to 1927) was an archpriest in Saint Petersburg and died in the Solovki camp on 7 August 1927. He is commemorated on 7 August, on 7 February with the synaxis of the new martyrs, on 23 August with the new martyrs and confessors of Solovki, and on 1 November with the saints of the Arkhangelsk metropolis.

He was born in 1873 at Saint Petersburg, into the family of Archpriest Nicholas Sakharov, a regimental priest. After finishing the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy he was ordained priest and raised to archpriest. In the early twenties he served at the church of the Archangel Michael in Saint Petersburg.

In 1924 the godless authorities in Petrograd began a fierce struggle against the Orthodox, shutting them in prisons and camps. To be arrested, a denunciation was enough, which almost always came from the Renovationists, who carefully watched every more zealous priest. In January 1924 a denunciation reached the OGPU, saying that Archpriest Alexander had supposedly preached from the pulpit that the faithful should not follow this government, because Soviet power was temporary, and that by Lenin's death the people had been rid of one of the antichrists. At the beginning of February 1924 he was arrested. At the interrogations he did not admit guilt and said: "I gave sermons at almost every service, but only on Gospel themes, without touching on political questions and public figures. It may be that some listener found something anti-⁠Soviet in my sermons, but I assure you that there never was." On 26 September 1924 the Special Council of the OGPU Collegium sentenced him to three years in the Solovki camp. On 22 October he was sent to the camp, from which he was not to return. Archpriest Alexander Sakharov reposed in the Solovki camp on 7 August 1927 and was buried in an unknown grave.