Alexander Vershinsky

Saint Hieromartyr Alexander Vershinsky (1873 to 1937) was an archpriest in Torzhok and then in Ivanteevka, near Moscow, and was shot on 8 December 1937, at Butovo, together with the layman Paul Kuzovkov. They are commemorated on 8 December, on 29 May with the new martyrs of Butovo, on 18 July with the saints of Tver, and on 5 September with the saints of Moscow.

Ministry at Torzhok

He was born on 6 March 1873 in the village of Kunganovo, Staritsa district, Tver province, into the family of the deacon Andrew Vershinsky, a great venerator of Father John of Kronstadt. In 1897 he finished the Tver seminary and entered as psalm-⁠reader at the cathedral of Saints Boris and Gleb in Staritsa. He married Elikonida, daughter of the priest Michael Nikolsky of the church of Saint Elijah in Torzhok, whose family had had thirteen children, of whom six survived. On 30 January 1900 he was ordained deacon at the cathedral in Staritsa, and on 6 February priest at the church of the Archangel Michael in the village of Mikhailovskoe. After his father-⁠in-⁠law's death, in 1901, he was moved to the church of Saint Elijah in Torzhok, where he served until 1927, when it was closed by the militant godless; from 1902 to 1917 he was teacher of religion. They had three children, two daughters and a son, Nicholas, born in 1918, who was called to the front in the war and disappeared in battle, in 1944. After his father-⁠in-⁠law's death all the cares of the large family fell on the young priest's shoulders. In 1920 he received a pectoral cross, in 1922 was raised to archpriest; in 1923 he was elected dean of the first Tver district, and in 1925, at twenty-⁠five years of service, received a golden pectoral cross. After the closing of the church of Saint Elijah, in 1927, Archbishop Thaddeus (Uspensky) blessed the community to move to the Transfiguration cathedral in Torzhok and appointed him rector. He served there until the cathedral was closed in 1931, then at the Nikolo-⁠Pustynskaya church. In 1932 he received the mitre. In March 1937 the church was seized by Renovationists, with the active support of the authorities, and Archpriest Alexander was left without a place.

Arrest and martyrdom

Seeing the flame of the ever more merciless persecution, he did not waver a moment in continuing the service of the Church. Well known to the church leadership, in March 1937 he was invited to the Smolensk church in the settlement of Ivanteevka, Pushkino district, Moscow region, where he served until his arrest. On 24 October an employee of the school in Ivanteevka sent a denunciation to the party committee secretary; the deacon Alexander Yakimansky, whose children studied at that school, said that the priest's sermons, delivered on feast days, had a monarchist character, speaking of the Exaltation of the Cross, of the Nativity of the Mother of God, of King David and the emperor Constantine, of the crucifixion of Christ by the authorities, and that the father organized new services, for example at the Dormition, bringing out the Epitaphios and the burial of the Mother of God, with a procession through the church. On 10 November the deacon was summoned to the NKVD and gave testimony to the same effect, saying that Vershinsky enjoyed great authority.

On 21 November 1937 NKVD officers arrested Archpriest Alexander, and the next day the chairman of the church council, Paul Vasilievich Kuzovkov, and the council member Nicholas Ivanovich Kopninsky. All were imprisoned at Taganka in Moscow. Other witnesses, among them the priest Nicholas Uspensky, said that the three were hostile to the Soviet order and that Vershinsky was leader and inspirer of the group. Father Alexander said at the interrogation that there had been a meeting of the church council in February 1937, but that he had expressed no counter-⁠revolutionary views and did not admit guilt. On 1 December 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced to death Archpriest Alexander Vershinsky and the chairman of the church council Paul Kuzovkov, and the council member Nicholas Kopninsky to eight years in the camp. Archpriest Alexander and the layman Paul were shot on 8 December 1937 and buried in an unmarked common grave at the Butovo firing range near Moscow. The layman Nicholas Kopninsky was imprisoned in the Mariinsk camps in the Kemerovo region, where he died on 15 March 1938.