Alexis Lopatin

Holy Hieromartyr Alexis Lopatin, a protopriest, was born in 1868 in the settlement of Kukarka in the Vyatka province. He was shot on 25 August 1918 in the city of Vyatka, after he had spoken in a sermon of the moral decline of the people. He was rehabilitated in 1996, and in 2024 the Holy Synod of the Russian Church numbered him among the New Martyrs and Confessors.

He graduated from the seminary at Vyatka. From 1890 until October 1916 he served at the church of the Transfiguration in the village of Verkhovino. From 1906 he was dean of the fourth district of the Orlov region, taught religion at several schools, and was many times a deputy at the diocesan congresses of Vyatka, a member of their preparatory commission, of the Vyatka brotherhood of Saint Nicholas, of the Orthodox Missionary Society and of other societies. In October 1916 he was appointed rector of the Transfiguration cathedral at Slobodskoy, with elevation to protopriest, and in February 1917 he became dean of the city's churches.

In January 1918 Bishop Nicander of Vyatka and Slobodskoy sent him the appeal of the Holy Council to the Orthodox people concerning the decree of the people's commissars on freedom of conscience, to be read in the churches of the town. On 30 January Protopriest Alexis called a deanery meeting and rebuked the persecution of the Church that had begun, inviting those present to consider means of defending the Church. The clear and courageous stand of the clergy of Slobodskoy owed much to his firmness.

On Sunday 21 April 1918 he gave a sermon in the cathedral in which, telling the life of Saint Mary of Egypt, he spoke of the life of the Russian people of their day and compared it with the first half of the saint's life: "We have forsaken the covenants of our forefathers, we have ceased to fulfil our Christian duties." The same day Red Guards arrested him twice and took him to the investigating commission at Slobodskoy. At the request of parishioners he was released, but at midnight he was arrested again and taken to the prison at Vyatka. He bore himself bravely at the interrogations, denying all the charges, and at Bishop Nicander's petition was released with other pastors for Pascha. On 23 May 1918 his home was searched and another arrest followed. The Ural Cheka sentenced him to the supreme penalty. He was shot on 25 August 1918 in Vyatka.

On 25 July 2024 the Holy Synod, at the petition of Metropolitan Mark of Vyatka and Slobodskoy, decided to enter the name of Protopriest Alexis Lopatin in the list of the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and to commemorate him on 12 (25) August, the day of his martyrdom, and also in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vyatka.