Alexis Speransky

Holy Hieromartyr Alexis Speransky, a priest, was born on 16 March 1881 in the village of Mineevo, in the Dmitrov district of the Moscow province, in the family of the priest Alexander Speransky. He was shot on 10 December 1937 at Butovo, near Moscow. The Russian Church honours him among the New Martyrs of Moscow.

In 1899 he finished the seminary of Bethany and was a teacher at a parish school. In 1902 he was appointed psalm-⁠reader at the church of Saints Boris and Gleb in the village of Zyuzino, and in 1909 he was moved to the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God at the craftsmen's almshouse in Moscow. In 1917 he was ordained priest for the Dormition church in the village of Bogoslovo, in the Bogorodsk district, where his aged father then served, and was appointed teacher of religion at the Bunkovo school. In 1920 he received the epigonation, and in 1923 Bishop Plato Rudnev of Bogorodsk gave him the skufia. In the village of Bogoslovo he served all his life.

The authorities persecuted him and from 1929 began to fine him. In the mid-⁠thirties, without leaving his service in the church, he took work as a blacksmith in the collective farm. When people came to the forge asking him to baptise, wed or bury, he took off his apron and went to perform the service. On Saturdays and Sundays he served faithfully in church and always gave sermons.

On 25 November 1937 his arrest was ordered. The pretext was what he was reported to have said: "Orthodox, we must strengthen faith in God, go more often to church and bring to church those who have fallen under bad influence." He was arrested for anti-⁠Soviet activity and imprisoned at Noginsk. He did not admit guilt. On 1 December the NKVD troika sentenced him to death. Priest Alexis Speransky was shot on 10 December 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo firing range. He is commemorated on 10 December, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo and the Synaxis of the Moscow Saints.