Alexis Uspensky

Holy Hieromartyr Alexis Uspensky, a protopriest, was born on 22 September 1879 in the village of Shola, in the Belozersk district of the Novgorod province, in the family of the psalm-⁠reader Gleb Uspensky, who died when Alexis was barely a year and a half old. He was shot on 21 September 1937, together with the church warden Vasily Shikalov, as servant of the church of the Ascension in the village of Voznesenye, in the diocese of Tver. He was glorified by the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000 for veneration throughout the whole Church.

After the seminary he was ordained priest and served in several parishes. The persecutions of the late twenties and early thirties found him at a church of the diocese of Tver. As in many other cases, the authorities demanded a huge tax from him, and since he could not pay, they arrested him: the court sentenced him to confiscation of property and six months in a labour camp. It was the harder because his wife, Vera Alexandrovna, and the children, a daughter of eight and two sons of six and three, were left without means. Every trial he accepted as sent by God, and it never crossed his mind to give up his service. Returned from prison, he served again and soon was raised to protopriest.

In early 1937 Archbishop Nikifor Nikolsky of Tver appointed him to the church of the Ascension in the village of Voznesenye, in the Bologoye district, since the authorities had taken away Archbishop Thaddeus's registration. In the parish's view he proved a zealous pastor and a great man of prayer. When, under the pressure of propaganda, people gave their children non-⁠Christian names, he sent them to the village council to change them, and only then come to be baptised. He never held general confession, but sought to speak with each person. He taught the faithful to raise their children in the spirit of Christian love, not to abandon the Orthodox faith and never to take off the cross. Since crosses, prayers of absolution and icons could no longer be found, he sent the church warden Vasily Yakovlevich Shikalov to the large cities to buy what was needed.

His zeal drew the attention of the NKVD, and a denunciation said that since he began to serve a religious revival had appeared in the parish: people go to church, baptise their children, among them a high-⁠ranking Red Army officer who came for the purpose, and there is talk of restoring the bells. On 2 September 1937 he was arrested together with the warden Vasily Shikalov, born on 12 April 1875 in the village of Bolshaya Dubrovna, who had earlier been sentenced for failing to meet a farm quota and had been cleared that summer. At the interrogation of 6 September the priest admitted that he had baptised children secretly in the villages, had distributed crosses and icons with prayers to strengthen faith, had commemorated Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra at the liturgy, had had the Bible at home since 1909, and had said in sermons that faith in Christ is failing but will live. The warden admitted that he had distributed up to a hundred and fifty crosses, prayers and wreaths.

On 19 September the NKVD troika sentenced both to death. Protopriest Alexis Uspensky and the warden Vasily Shikalov were shot on 21 September 1937. They are commemorated on 22 September, on 7 February and in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tver, on 18 July.