Alexander Telemakov

Holy Hieromartyr Alexander Telemakov was a priest in the diocese of Simbirsk. He was born on 6 December 1870 in Syzran and shot on 19 February 1938 in Ulyanovsk. In 2004 the Holy Synod of the Russian Church numbered him among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Simbirsk. He is commemorated on 6 February by the old calendar, which is 19 February by the new.

He was born into the family of a second-⁠rank civil servant. At fifteen he moved to Simbirsk and entered the theological seminary, which he finished in 1890. In the same year he was sent as psalm-⁠reader to the cathedral of Simbirsk. On 8 September 1893 he was ordained priest and sent to the parish of the village of Mariopol, in the Karsun district, where he also taught religion, reading and writing in the local school. In the same year he married Anna Stepanovna Platonova, and they had nine children, five sons and four daughters.

In October 1897 he received the epigonation and was appointed rector of the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the village of Korzhevka, where he also directed the parish school. In 1908, by order of Archbishop Jacob, he moved to the neighbouring village of Chumakino, to the church of Saint Nicholas. In that year he received the thanks of the Holy Synod. For ten years he was elected to the council of the sixth church district of Karsun, and in February 1908 he became dean of the district. In 1914 he received the pectoral cross awarded by the Holy Synod, and as a teacher he was also given medals of the parish schools.

After the revolution, in 1925 he was deprived of the vote. In 1928 he was dispossessed as a kulak and lost fifteen desyatinas of land, his house, his horse and his cow. On 25 February 1932 he was arrested by the secret police, and on 7 April 1932 he was sentenced to five years in a camp, a sentence changed to five years of exile. He was sent to the Arkhangelsk region and worked on the White Sea Canal. At the end of 1934 he was released early because of illness.

He returned to Chumakino. The village church was closed, so he baptized newborn children, served moleben prayers and buried the dead in their homes, although this was forbidden. On 24 December 1937 he was arrested again and interrogated. He denied the charges of counter-⁠revolutionary and anti-⁠Soviet activity. On 29 December 1937 the troika attached to the NKVD administration for the Kuibyshev region sentenced him to death. The sentence was carried out on 19 February 1938. The place of burial is unknown.

He was rehabilitated on 22 July 1989 by the regional prosecutor's office in Ulyanovsk. In April 2012 a church dedicated to Holy Hieromartyr Alexander Telemakov was built in the village of Chumakino.