Alexander Savelov

Saint Hieromartyr Alexander Savelov (died 1918) was a priest at the church of Saint John the Baptist in the village of Kultaevo, in the Perm district, and was killed by soldiers of the Red Army at the end of December 1918, together with Archpriest Nicholas Beltyukov. He is commemorated on 30 December, on 7 February with the synaxis of the new martyrs, and on 14 February with the saints of the Perm metropolis.

Alexander Nikanorovich Savelov was born about 1859. In 1882 he finished the Perm seminary, in the second rank, and was ordained priest. Between 1894 and 1911 he is mentioned as rector of the church of the Exaltation of the Cross in the village of Gorskoe, Osa district, Perm province. He then served at the church of Saint John the Baptist in the village of Kultaevo, Perm district, with Archpriest Nicholas Beltyukov.

Archpriest Nicholas Beltyukov was born on 21 July 1870 in the village of Kosmodamianskoe, Solikamsk district, into the family of the priest Alexander Andreevich Beltyukov. He finished the Perm seminary, was a teacher and teacher of religion, at twenty-⁠four married Anfia Mikhailovna Demeneva, and on 4 September 1894 Bishop Peter (Losev) ordained him priest and sent him to the church of Saint Nicholas in the village of Kalinovskoe. His service there lasted under a year: on 30 May 1895, because of illness, his grandfather, Archpriest Andrew Beltyukov, of the church of Saint John the Baptist at Kultaevo, was retired, and he died a few days later, on 2 June, aged seventy-⁠three, having received the holy Mysteries the day before from the hand of his grandson. On the day of his grandfather's death, Father Nicholas was moved, at his own request, to his place, and served at Kultaevo twenty-⁠three years, until his martyr's death. From the first he laboured much in the education of the people, as teacher of religion at the village school and at the schools of neighbouring villages, and in 1895 he was appointed head of the school of literacy at Bolshoe Savino.

The year 1918 was tragic for the servants of the church at Kultaevo. In the time of the so-⁠called "Perm catastrophe", the Reds were retreating through the village along the road to Yugo-⁠Kamsk; the Bolsheviks treated the locals cruelly: in a large horse yard they hacked and shot innocent people, whose bodies, covered with tarpaulin, were carried out of the village at night and thrown into trenches. Father Alexander and Father Nicholas did not escape. According to their short life, the Red soldiers staged an exemplary reprisal on the priests: first they shot at them but only wounded them, then they hacked both with sabres. According to the account in the source on Father Nicholas, before killing him the executioners led him from village to village, driving him with blows of sabres and bayonets; when, bleeding, he fell without strength, they finished him with a blow of a rifle butt to the face. The body lay more than a week in the snow until the peasants found it; it was buried in the grounds of the church built by him.

The church was closed in 1937 and returned to believers in 1991. On 6 August 2018, during waterproofing work on the foundation, an unknown grave was found in the church grounds; forensic examination showed the remains to be those of Archpriest Nicholas Beltyukov, and on 2 April 2019 Patriarch Kirill blessed the veneration of his holy relics.