Alexander Skalsky

Saint Hieromartyr Alexander Skalsky (1867 to 1933) was an archpriest at the church of Saint Nicholas in the city of Verny (today Almaty), in Kazakhstan, and died of typhus in prison on 20 January 1933, together with Archpriests Stephen Ponomarev and Philip Grigoryev. They are commemorated on 17 January, on 7 February with the synaxis of the new martyrs, and on 23 October with the saints of Volhynia.

He was born in 1867 in the Volhynia province, into the family of the priest Philemon Skalsky. In 1886 he was appointed psalm-⁠reader at the church of the Exaltation of the Cross in Kamenets-⁠Podolsk. In 1891 he was received into the Turkestan diocese by Bishop Neophytus (Nevodchikov) and appointed psalm-⁠reader at the church in the stanitsa of Zaitsevskaya, and teacher of religion at the church school. On 8 August 1893 he was ordained deacon and served at the church of Alexander Nevsky in Margilan. On 21 February 1899 he was ordained priest and in 1900 appointed rector of the Alexandro-⁠Mariinskaya church at the children's home in Verny; there he planted, with the children, a park in front of the house, which was partly cut down after its closing. In 1907 he was appointed rector of the church of Saint Nicholas at Kuchugury, in Verny, where he served until his arrest. He was raised to archpriest and received many distinctions for his pastoral zeal. He had once been married, but his wife had left him, they had no children, and the priest lived alone in a room of the house by the church, devoting all his free time to the sick and needy. He served brilliantly and festally, and his voice could be heard in the farthest corner of the church. He said that he stood at the Throne of the Lord, that this was the serving of God, that people must rejoice and all be cheerful, and that one must serve so that even the air rings. With him served at the church Archpriest Stephen, who later suffered together with his rector.

Father Stephen

Stephen (Stepan Konstantinovich Ponomarev) was born on 14 December 1880 at Verny. In 1904 he was appointed psalm-⁠reader in the village of Mikhailovskoe and teacher of singing. He married Praskovia; after the wedding he told her that if she wanted to go to paradise and be with the Lord, he would be her brother and she his sister, and from that moment they lived as monastics. In 1909 he was ordained deacon, then priest. From 1914 to 1917 he was priest in a field military hospital, and in the trenches he fell gravely ill and barely survived; from then on he suffered from headaches, especially in winter. He then served at the church of Saint Nicholas in Verny and was raised to archpriest; he served daily and lived as a strict monk, with quiet and devout services. Seeing that it was hard for Father Alexander to live alone, he urged him to come to them; they lived in the same house, each in a plain room.

The temptation of Renovationism

In 1923 Bishop Nicholas (Fedotov) was appointed bishop in Semirechye, who in that same year went over to the Renovationist schism, and in the Ascension cathedral in Alma-⁠Ata the Renovationist bishop Alexis Markov was elected; in time almost all Semirechye became Renovationist. In 1927 Father Alexander Skalsky began to incline toward the Renovationists too and said aloud that he felt great turmoil of soul. Father Stephen stood unshaken: "I will not go over to Renovationism. I will serve as before in the side chapel of Saint Panteleimon. But I will not let you go anywhere either." The faithful of Alma-⁠Ata grieved and wept for Father Alexander. While he struggled, the women gathered in the church and sent one of them, the old woman Luchagina, who told him, with her staff raised and in tears, that if he abandoned his flock she would lead him around with the staff like her own child, regardless of his being a priest. Father Alexander wept and told Father Stephen that the Lord had enlightened him through that old woman. Father Stephen suspended him from service until repentance. On the first feast day Father Alexander repented before the clergy and the people and served again with him.

Arrest and death

By 1929 the Ascension cathedral had been given to the historical museum, and the Renovationists moved to the Holy Trinity church. The church of Saint Nicholas remained the only Orthodox church, and Archpriest Philip Grigoryev, who had served at the Holy Trinity and had not wished to remain with the Renovationists, came to serve there. Philip Mikhailovich Grigoryev was born on 6 November 1870, finished the Omsk teachers' seminary, was psalm-⁠reader, in 1898 deacon, in 1902 priest, served in villages of the Omsk diocese, then in Semirechye, at the Holy Trinity in Alma-⁠Ata and then at Saint Nicholas. On 10 December 1932 the OGPU arrested Archpriests Alexander, Stephen and Philip. In prison they fell ill with typhus; when their condition became hopeless they were taken to a barracks for typhus patients, but they did not stay long there. On 17 January 1933 Archpriest Philip Grigoryev died, on the 18th Archpriest Stephen Ponomarev, on the 20th Archpriest Alexander Skalsky. All three were buried in the cemetery where at that time the peasants exiled to Alma-⁠Ata were buried.