Alexander Shchukin

Holy Hieromartyr Alexander Shchukin (in the world Alexander Ivanovich Shchukin) was born on 13 May 1891 at Riga and was shot on 30 October 1937 at Semipalatinsk. He was archbishop of Semipalatinsk and Ust-⁠Kamenogorsk. He was numbered among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia in August 2000. He is remembered on 17 October on the old calendar (30 October), the day of his death.

Family and studies

His father, Ioann Vasilyevich, born in the town of Porkhov, graduated from the Pskov seminary and the Moscow Theological Academy (1886) and taught at the seminaries of Pskov and Riga. The family of the priest (from 1914 archpriest) Ioann Vasilyevich Shchukin and his wife, Elizabeth, had seven children. Their son Alexander yearned from childhood for the service of the Church. He studied at the seminary in Riga (1911) and in 1915 graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy, with the title of candidate in theology. At the beginning of the First World War the family moved to Nizhny Novgorod, where Alexander also came. On 11 December 1915, since there were no other places, he was appointed teacher of physics and mathematics at the Nizhny Novgorod seminary. On 21 May 1919 Archbishop Evdokim (Meshchersky) ordained him priest and sent him to the church of Saint George in the village of Lyskovo. Between 1918 and 1923 he served together with his father, arrested in 1918, returned home sick and died in 1923, shortly after his son's episcopal consecration, at the church of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God in Lyskovo.

The bishop

He was elected bishop of Makaryev, vicar of the diocese of Nizhny Novgorod, and consecrated on 21 August 1923 by Archbishop Evdokim and Bishop Paul (Volkov) of Kerzhenets. Besides the Ascension cathedral in Lyskovo he served at the Makaryev Zheltovodsky and Marov monasteries and at Makaryev taught children the Law of God (after a year the authorities stopped it). He preached often, rebuking unbelief. He said that only people lacking humanity, who do not believe in eternal life and have little intention of building anything in earthly life, can pull down monasteries and churches.

In the autumn of 1928 he was arrested and imprisoned at Nizhny Novgorod. He was offered an end to his sermons in exchange for freedom, but he refused, saying that his body was in their hands and they could do with it what they wished, but his soul he would not give them. On the charge that "by delivering sermons of an anti-⁠Soviet inclination he had instilled his counter-⁠revolutionary convictions in the people", the bishop was sentenced to three years of imprisonment, which he served in the special camp at Solovki, where he worked as a watchman, then as an accountant. From 31 December 1931 he was bishop of Bolkhov, vicar of the diocese of Oryol, and led the diocese of Oryol. From 27 July 1932 he was bishop of Oryol and continued to preach much, despite threats. On 3 January 1934 he was raised to archbishop. On 30 September 1935 he was appointed archbishop of Kursk, but remained at Oryol. From 18 March 1936 he was archbishop of Rzhev, vicar of the diocese of Kalinin, from 18 June 1936 archbishop of Tula, and from September 1936 archbishop of Semipalatinsk and Ust-⁠Kamenogorsk.

Martyrdom

His sister asked him to retire to Lyskovo and wait there for the persecution to pass. He refused: however much he loved her, he had not taken up the staff in order to lay it down. In August 1937 he was arrested. At the interrogations he bore himself courageously, did not admit guilt and refused to name his acquaintances. On 28 October, on the charge of "espionage and counter-⁠revolutionary agitation", he was sentenced to death by shooting and was shot two days later. The place of his burial is not known. In the early 1960s the funeral service was held in absentia at the church of the Mother of God of Kazan in Lyskovo. Behind the altar, beside his father's grave, a cenotaph of the archbishop was set.