Alexis Vinogradov

Holy Hieromartyr Alexei (Alexei Petrovich Vinogradov) was an archpriest, born on 28 December 1871 in Moscow into the family of an official of the Holy Synod, Peter Vinogradov (later a priest), and shot on 28 March 1938 at Rzhev. He is commemorated on 28 March, the day of his martyric death, and on 4 February (a movable date), in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church. Our sources do not give the year or act of his glorification, but they regard him as a holy hieromartyr.

In 1897 he finished the theological seminary, then worked three years as a teacher, and in 1900 was ordained priest. In 1928 he was appointed dean, and in 1932 raised to the rank of archpriest. In 1937 he served at the church in the village of Novotroitskoe, Vysokovo district, Kalinin region (today the Staritsa district, Tver region). On 27 November he was arrested on a charge of counter-⁠revolutionary activity among the population and the next day was interrogated, but did not admit the charges. The investigator questioned three false witnesses, a priest and two peasants, who gave the testimony that the investigation needed. On 5 December he was sentenced to ten years in a labour camp. Until his dispatch to the camp he was held in the prison at Rzhev.

On 9 February 1938 a prisoner of the Rzhev prison, convicted of murder, sent a statement to the NKVD plenipotentiary, in which he wrote that on 22 December 1937 he had been moved to cell no. 9, where there were fifty-⁠seven people convicted under article 58 (anti-⁠Soviet agitation and propaganda), and among them the priest Alexei Vinogradov, who, although convicted under article 58, was still against Soviet power, agitating that a time would come when the NKVD men headed by Commissar Yezhov would answer for us, and that the Stalinist constitution was only a written document and of no use in life to anyone. A new investigation began, and the next day the investigator presented to the already convicted priest a new charge of counter-⁠revolutionary propaganda among the prisoners of the Rzhev prison. Vinogradov did not admit guilt, but the murderer, author of the statement, and a young man, raised in an orphanage, who had ended up in prison on leaving the orphanage, slandered the priest in their testimony to the investigator. On 10 February 1938 the investigation was completed. On 25 March the NKVD troika sentenced Father Alexei to death. Archpriest Alexei Vinogradov was shot on 28 March 1938 and buried in an unknown common grave.