Alexei Kantserov

Saint Alexis Kantserov, hieromartyr, was a priest of the Russian Church, a graduate of the Ufa seminary. He received the crown of martyrdom on 25 June 1918, killed by the Bolsheviks. He was canonized locally in the diocese of Ufa in 1999, and in 2000 by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. He is commemorated in the Synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia.

In 1902 he finished the Ufa seminary. He was a teacher at the parish school at the station of Vyazovaya on the Samara-⁠Zlatoust railway, then a psalm-⁠reader at the church of the Transfiguration at the same station. In 1907 he was ordained priest at the church of the Exaltation of the Cross in the village of Vozdvizhenka, Belebey district, Ufa governorate. From 1915 he served as priest at the church of the Protection of the Mother of God in the village of Toporino, Ufa district, today the district center Kushnarenkovo in the Republic of Bashkortostan. In 1917 he was elected chairman of the committee attached to the district administration for spreading among the people news about the state war loan.

On 25 June 1918 Father Alexis was arrested at Toporino and taken by steamer to Sarapul. After many tortures and mockeries the Bolsheviks shot him at night, on the way back from Sarapul to Ufa, and his body was thrown into the water.

He was canonized in 1999 by Bishop Nikon of Ufa and Sterlitamak as a saint venerated locally in the diocese of Ufa, and from 13 to 16 August 2000 by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. His commemoration is kept on the first Sunday after 25 January (7 February), in the Synaxis of the new martyrs.