Alexis Merkuryev

Holy Hieromartyr Alexis Merkuryev, a priest, was born on 11 February 1852 in the village of Pokrovskoe, in the Yekaterinburg district, in a priest's family. He was shot in sight of his parishioners during the civil war, near the church of the village of Koryukovskoe; the exact date of his martyrdom is not known. He was glorified by the Holy Synod on 17 July 2002.

In 1868 he finished the spiritual school at Yekaterinburg, where he proved very gifted. After two years he was received as a novice at the bishop's house in Yekaterinburg, then was vested as a reader and served as psalm-⁠reader at the Intercession church in the village of Krivskoe, in the Shadrinsk district, and taught religion at the parish school. After his marriage, on 6 December 1892 he was ordained priest and, at the parishioners' request, assigned to the Edinoverie church of the Intercession in the village of Ivanishchevskoe. In 1897 he was named a candidate for the missionary committee at Ivanishchevskoe, and on 27 October 1903 he was confirmed as chairman of the parish church guardianship. The parish was made up of believers keeping the old rites within the Orthodox Church, and the priest also worked with the schismatics of the village, trying to persuade them to leave the schism.

His last place of service was the village of Koryukovskoe in the Kamyshlov district, with its wooden church of the Ascension of the Lord, built in 1861. There he laboured zealously for the Church, and in 1914, at Pascha, he received the epigonation for his zealous service. His wife, Antonina Grigorievna, a deacon's daughter, was the support of the household. In 1896 the family had seven children: four sons, Konstantin, Jacob, Alexander and Valerian, and three daughters, Anna, Taisia and Claudia. The children were raised in piety; the sons Konstantin and Jacob became psalm-⁠readers of the Church.

After the events of October Father Alexis went on fulfilling his pastoral duties, but the Bolsheviks hated the Church and its servants. The village of Koryukovskoe became a front-⁠line village, and an order of the Cheka permitted communists to shoot clergy. The aged priest was arrested and shot in public, near the church, in front of his parishioners, his daughter and his son. His relatives carried his body to Katayskoe, after the village was freed from the Bolsheviks, and buried him beside the Epiphany church there. The judgment was, as everywhere, without trial. He is commemorated in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Yekaterinburg, on 11 February.