Alexander Sokolov

Saint Hieromartyr Alexander Sokolov (1893 to 1937) was a priest in the Novgorod province and then in the Tver region and was shot on 29 August 1937. He is commemorated on 29 August, on 7 February with the synaxis of the new martyrs, on 11 July with the saints of Vologda and Novgorod, and on 18 July with the saints of Tver. He was numbered among the saints by the Bishops' Council of the year 2000.

He was born in 1893 in the village of Ozerovo, Tikhvin district, Novgorod province, into the family of the priest Nicholas Sokolov. In 1915 he finished the Novgorod seminary and entered as psalm-⁠reader at the church in the village of Yershovo, Cherepovets district. In 1916 he was ordained deacon at the church in Morotskoe, and a year later priest at the church in Ozerovo, where he had spent his childhood. In 1924 he was moved to the church in Yershovo, where he had once been psalm-⁠reader.

Immediately after the establishment of Soviet rule the persecutions against the Church began. One of their forms was the demand for excessive taxes and fines, which in Father Alexander's case were so large that, having nothing to pay them with, he was forced in 1924 to move, with his wife Elizabeth Alexandrovna and three small children, to another place, in the Tver region, where he served first in churches of the Krasny Kholm district, then in the village of Porechye, Molokovo district. Father Alexander gave all his strength and all his time to his flock. The local authorities had forbidden prayer services in the fields and in the parishioners' houses, but he, as before the revolution, regularly went round all the villages of the parish. Seeing his zeal, the flock loved him. Despite the persecution and the destruction of churches and although the authorities constantly plundered the parish and the priest, the church in Porechye was repaired each time it was needed, but each time the authorities at once pursued both the priest and the parishioners.

In 1935 the parishioners painted and whitewashed the church, and sold the paint that was left to the school. Immediately after, the priest and the warden were arrested; the priest was accused of speculation and sentenced to five years in the camp. In those years it was sometimes still possible, if the priest was not accused of a political crime, to prove one's innocence. The regional court, where the case came from the district court, acquitted him fully, and Father Alexander was released. While everything that had any connection with the Church was being ruthlessly destroyed, his parishioners built a new brick fence around the chapel.

At the end of April 1937 the chairman of the village soviet summoned Father Alexander to the office and demanded that he pay in advance the income tax for the next quarter, and also rent for the land on which the church and its buildings stood. Father answered: "Do not waste your efforts in vain; I will not pay, because the time of payments has not come." And he left the village soviet at once, not wishing to hold an empty and dangerous discussion. In the summer of 1937 the NKVD officers were informed of the coming arrests of the whole clergy and began to gather data. Most often people were called who were ready to say and confirm anything. One of them told an NKVD officer of Father Alexander that he had doubted the authenticity of the confessions of the accused at the public trials, where the accused slandered themselves and others too readily and smoothly, and that, observing that there was no bread in the district's shops, he had supposed it was because of inflated harvest figures given by the local authorities. Having nothing to accuse him of, the informer added an anecdote which the priest was supposed to have told. Alexander Sokolov was arrested for "anti-⁠Soviet agitation" and shot on 29 August 1937.