Alexis Smirnov

Holy Hieromartyr Alexis Smirnov, a protopriest, was born in 1870 in the village of Golubovo in the Moscow province, in the family of the priest Sergius Smirnov. He was shot on 22 March 1938 at Butovo, near Moscow, together with three other priests of the same deanery: Protopriests Sergius Lebedev and Sergius Tsvetkov and Priest Demetrius Glivenko. The Russian Church honours him among the New Martyrs of Moscow.

He finished the Moscow seminary and in 1897 was appointed psalm-⁠reader at the church of the Exaltation of the Cross in Moscow. In 1908 he was ordained deacon at the church of Saint Nicholas in Plotniki, and on 9 May 1927 priest at the same church. In 1931 he was appointed rector there and raised to protopriest; in 1932 he was rector of the church of Saint Blaise in Moscow, in 1934 of the church of Saint Simeon the Stylite and, in the same year, he received the mitre and was appointed rector of the church of the Nativity of Christ at Izmailovo. In 1935 he was appointed rector of the church of Saint Nicholas and the Archangel in the village of Nikolskoe, in the Balashikha district, and from 1937 he served at the church of the Dormition in the village of Kosino, in the Ukhtomsky district, an old village famed for the icon of the Mother of God of Kosino (Modena) and the icon of Saint Nicholas, which drew crowds of pilgrims each summer.

In January 1938 the NKVD arrested the priests of the Ukhtomsky deanery, Father Alexis among them, and imprisoned them at Taganka. Asked whether he knew Dean Vladimir Fedorovich Vozdvizhensky and whether he belonged to the counter-⁠revolutionary grouping led by him, he said that he knew him well and often visited his home, but that he had belonged to no grouping. He rejected the charges of counter-⁠revolutionary activity and terrorist sentiments. Since he refused to give false testimony, he was confronted with the priest Sergius Sakharov, who confirmed the testimony the investigators wanted, but Father Alexis rejected all of it: "I reject Sakharov's testimony, for I carried on no counter-⁠revolutionary activity."

Arrested with him were Fathers Sergius Lebedev (born in 1875 in Moscow, a religion teacher and priest at the Smolensk Mother of God church of Novodevichy Convent, arrested also in 1922 and 1931), Sergius Tsvetkov (born in 1869, priest at the church at Veshnyakovo) and Demetrius Glivenko (born in 1879 at Taganrog, rector of the church of the Holy Trinity at Kacharovo). All rejected the charges. On 15 March 1938 the NKVD troika sentenced all four to death, and on 22 March 1938 they were shot and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo firing range. They are commemorated on 22 March, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo and the Synaxis of the Moscow Saints.