Alexander Yuzefovich

Saint Alexander Yuzefovich, hieromartyr, was a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church in Central Asia and received the crown of martyrdom by shooting on 17 January 1921, in the Semirechye region. In the year 2000 he was numbered in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

He was born in 1858 or 1860 in the Vilna governorate. He attended two classes at the teachers' seminary and at eighteen was already serving as psalm-⁠reader. He was sent to serve in Central Asia with the blessing of Bishop Alexander (Kulchitsky) of Turkestan. In 1879 he was appointed psalm-⁠reader at the church of Saint Nicholas in the Cossack settlement of Lepsinskaya, in the Sergiopol district, and in 1881 he was transferred to the church of the village of Zaitsevo. During this time he was also a subdeacon, attached to the Church of the Cross of the bishop's residence at Verny.

On 11 June 1882 he was ordained deacon, and on 18 July of the same year priest, to the church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Preobrazhenskoe, in the Przhevalsk district. From 6 May 1908 he taught religion at the parish school there. He served as second priest and then as rector of the church of Preobrazhenskoe.

For his help to the Holy Trinity monastery of Issyk-⁠Kul, struck by an earthquake, he was awarded the priestly belt on 11 November 1885. On 10 December 1899 he received the violet skufia for building the church at Preobrazhenskoe, on 6 May 1909 the kamilavka, and on 19 December 1911 the pectoral cross from the Holy Synod. During the uprising of 1916 he and his family sheltered refugees and gave refuge in the church to women and children. In 1917 he was transferred to the church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Kara-⁠Balta, in the Aulie-⁠Ata district of the Syr-⁠Darya region.

He was shot on 17 January 1921, in the time when Soviet power was being established in Semirechye. He was rehabilitated on 14 April 1993. On 10 February 1999 he was canonized for local veneration by the diocese of Alma-⁠Ata, and in the year 2000 the Jubilee Council of Bishops, on the proposal of the same diocese, numbered him among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.