Alexis Smirnov

Holy Hieromartyr Alexis Smirnov, a priest, was born on 8 February 1890 in the village of Redino, in the Klin district of the Moscow province, in the family of the psalm-⁠reader Alexander Smirnov. He was shot on 11 December 1937 at Butovo, near Moscow. The Russian Church honours him among the New Martyrs of Moscow.

In 1915 he finished the seminary of Bethany and on 22 September was appointed psalm-⁠reader at the Tikhvin church of his native village. On 21 April 1916 he was ordained priest for the Resurrection church in the village of Merzloe, in the Klin district, and in 1922 he was moved to the church of the Dormition at Prechistensky Pogost, in the same district. After the revolution his household was burdened with heavy taxes; for non-⁠payment he was sentenced to one month of forced labour. The godless authorities aimed to destroy the Church, and the taxes on clergy and on communities of believers were one of its weapons.

On 4 December 1929, the day of the feast of the Presentation of the Mother of God, the parishioners of the Dormition church gathered and decided to collect the sum demanded for insurance and for the use of the church. On 30 December 1929 the OGPU arrested the priest and the church warden Gregory Sivokhin, accusing them of spreading false rumours of an approaching war and of stirring up the people's discontent with the authorities, and imprisoned them at Butyrka. On 23 February 1930 the Collegium of the OGPU sentenced the priest to five years in a camp, and he was sent to the White Sea-⁠Baltic camp. With the counting of work days and concessions his term was shortened by one year, and in December 1933 he received his release papers. On 30 May 1934 he was sent again to the same church at Prechistensky Pogost.

At the end of the nineteen-⁠thirties a new wave of persecution began. He was arrested on the feast of the Presentation, 4 December 1937, and imprisoned at Taganka. The next day he was questioned and said that he had no close acquaintances anywhere and that he did not admit guilt of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation. The chairman of the village council gave a certificate in which he wrote that the priest, under pretext of mending footwear, had carried on anti-⁠Soviet work. A false witness said that the priest had told him: "I fear they will take me soon. In the Klin district they have arrested all the priests." On 7 December, at the last interrogation, he again said that he did not admit guilt. On 9 December 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced him to death. Priest Alexis Smirnov was shot on 11 December 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave. He is commemorated on 11 December, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo and the Synaxis of the Moscow Saints.