Alexei Porfiryev

Saint Alexei Porfiryev, hieromartyr, was an archpriest and rector of the cathedral of Nizhny Novgorod and was shot in 1918. In the year 2000 he was numbered among the saints by the Russian Orthodox Church.

He was born in the village of Mozharov Maidan, into a large peasant family of the Simbirsk governorate. He finished the theological seminary of Simbirsk and the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy, in 1882, with the title of candidate of theology. For many years he served in the priestly rank, was raised to the rank of archpriest and was rector of the cathedral of Nizhny Novgorod. He was a great man of prayer. Of all the icons of the Mother of God he honoured most the icon of the Joy of All Who Sorrow.

On 7 June 1918, together with Bishop Laurence (Knyazev) and the former provincial marshal of the nobility, Alexei Neidhardt, he signed, on behalf of the congress of clergy, an appeal to the flock, calling for protest against the closing of churches and monasteries and the confiscation of church property. Soon all who had signed the appeal were arrested by the Soviet authorities, accused of calling for counter-⁠revolutionary activity and sentenced to death by shooting. Before this the clergy were offered the chance to give up their rank in exchange for their lives, but they did not accept the offer.

After the sentence was read he wept, grieving for the fate of his family. He died with his hands folded on his chest, his head bowed and the prayer of the publican on his lips: God, be merciful to me, a sinner. In 2000 all three shot new martyrs were canonized by the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2003 an icon of Saint Alexei Porfiryev was installed in the cathedral of the Archangel Michael in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, the first Nizhny Novgorod icon of a saint who died for the faith in the Soviet period.