Alexei Vorobyov

Holy Hieromartyr Alexei Vorobyov was an archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church, born in 1888 in the village of Antonkovo (today in the Kirov region) and shot on 20 August 1937 at the Butovo firing range near Moscow. He was canonized in the year 2000. He is commemorated on 7 (20) August and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

From 1905 to 1908 he was a canonarch and guest-⁠master at the Kazan monastery of Saint John the Forerunner, then a novice at the Sedmiezernaya hermitage in the Kazan governorate. From 1911 to 1914 he was a soldier in the Peter the Great infantry regiment at Kaluga. In the First World War he served as a driver in the 24th infantry (transport) division, and after the coup of October 1917 in the train of the 161st division. From 1920 he lived in Moscow and attended pastoral theological courses at the church of the Holy Great Martyr Tryphon.

On 26 June 1921 he was ordained priest, unmarried. From 1921 to 1923 he served at the church of the Transfiguration in the village of Selinskoe, Klin district, and in 1924 he was dean of the first district of the Klin vicariate. On 26 September 1924 he was arrested together with Father Alexei Nikonov and in February 1925 received two years in a camp, because without permission of the local authority he had held in the church of Klin an assembly of believers and carried on anti-⁠Soviet agitation. From 1925 to 1927 he was in the special camp at Solovki.

From 1927 to 1930 he served in a rural parish of the Ufa diocese, then in the Resurrection cathedral in Pavlovsky Posad (Moscow region). In 1931 he was raised to the rank of archpriest. From 1935 he was dean of the Pavlovo-⁠Posad district, between 1935 and 1936 he served at the church of the Holy Trinity in the village of Khoteichi, and from 1936 to August 1937 at the church of the Ascension in the village of Gorodok.

Martyrdom

He was arrested on 8 August 1937, accused of anti-⁠Soviet agitation. At the interrogation he did not admit guilt: asked whether he was guilty of systematic anti-⁠Soviet agitation among believers and fellow church workers, he answered that he had never carried on such agitation and did not admit guilt. The special troika of the NKVD for the Moscow region sentenced him on 19 August 1937, under Article 58, points 10 and 11, to death, for systematic fascist and insurgent agitation. He was shot on 20 August 1937 at Butovo. He was rehabilitated on 24 June 1989.

Veneration

He was numbered among the saints, the new martyrs and confessors of Russia, by the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church from 13 to 16 August 2000 in Moscow. On 1 April 2015, with the blessing of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the celebration of the Synaxis of the Saints of the Vinnytsia land was established, and among its 15 ascetics the holy hieromartyr Alexei (Vorobyov) was named; the Synaxis is celebrated on 14 September. In the Holy Trinity cathedral in Urzhum an icon of the saint has been painted, and every year on 21 August a solemn service and procession are held at the place of his birth; at Urzhum, in the Kirov region, the Saint Alexei Days are held, with a procession of the cross, local history readings and a festival of Orthodox culture.