Alexandra Smolyakova

Holy Martyr Alexandra Smolyakova (Alexandra Mikhailovna Smolyakova) was born in 1880 in the Lebedyan district of the Tambov province. She was arrested in 1939 and died a martyr in 1942, in a camp in Kazakhstan. The Jubilee Council of Bishops in the year 2000 numbered her among the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, for veneration throughout the whole Church.

In 1939 Alexandra was arrested and sentenced to ten years in a labour camp. She was serving her term in the Akmolinsk section of the Karlag camp in Kazakhstan when, in 1942, she was arrested again, this time in the group case of Evdokia Andrianova. On 20 April 1942 she was sentenced to death, and the sentence was carried out soon afterwards. She is commemorated in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church on 7 February (new style), and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Lipetsk on 23 September.