Alexis Vvedensky

Holy Hieromartyr Alexis Vvedensky, a protopriest, was born on 16 May 1890 in the village of Danilovo, in the Podolsk district of the Moscow province, in the family of the psalm-⁠reader Gregory Vvedensky. He reposed in the Samarlag camp in the night of 22 to 23 December 1937, after being sentenced to ten years in a camp. The Russian Church honours him among the New Martyrs and Confessors.

Early life

In 1904 he finished the Donskoy spiritual school, and in 1911 the Moscow seminary. While a seminarian he visited Hieromonk Barnabas Merkulov and later the elder Hippolytus, confessor of the scattered brethren of the Holy Trinity-⁠Saint Sergius Lavra. Then he was a teacher at the school in the village of Levkovo. In 1912 he married Elena Alexandrovna Voskresenskaya, a graduate of the Filaret diocesan girls' school. In 1913, when the priest at Levkovo died, he was ordained priest in his place, at the church of the Prophet Elijah, was later raised to protopriest, and in 1936 received the palitsa.

After the arrival of the godless authorities, in 1930 his house and belongings were taken. He moved with his wife and two children to the village of Samarovka, in the Bolshevo district, and served for a time at the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God at Kostino. On 23 June 1930 he was appointed rector of the church of the Meeting of the Lord at Novaya Derevnya, in the Pushkino district, and the family settled in a small church cottage. His wife served as choir director and psalm-⁠reader. In April 1931, in Great Lent, the village council asked him to saw wood for a bridge in his free time from the services, and the taxes were hard to pay. In 1932 he asked the elder Hippolytus whether he would be moved to another parish, and the elder answered: "How many years did your predecessor serve? Seven? You too will serve seven."

Arrest and camp

On 27 November 1937 the heads of the NKVD of the Moscow region signed the papers for his arrest. That same evening, about ten o'clock, a car stopped at the church and three men arrested Father Alexis. The next morning his wife, with their younger son, Valentin, brought a package to the cell; under the window she saw him wave to her and call out "Take care of Valya." He was moved to Taganka, where on 1 December he was questioned. He said that his attitude to the Soviet authorities was loyal, that he had carried on no anti-⁠Soviet agitation, and that in September 1937 he had voiced discontent only among his fellow priests, because the finance office had taxed him on income more than his brethren in city churches. Two professional witnesses, the priests Mikhail Toluzakov and Stepan Markov, who served in Moscow and had never met him, signed the testimony wanted.

On 7 December 1937 the NKVD troika sentenced him to ten years in a camp. He arrived with the transport at the Samarlag camp, on the same day as the priest Theodore Grudakov, sentenced to the same term, who had studied with him in the same class at the seminary; together they worked on the construction of the Samara thermal power plant. Because of his health, Father Alexis at once received the third category of disability. His last letter to his wife arrived on 11 December, and shortly afterwards a letter came from Father Theodore, who wrote that Father Alexis had reposed in the night of 22 to 23 December, at three forty-⁠five, and urged her to find consolation in faith. Father Theodore died in the camp, of exhausting work and hunger, on 26 November 1940. Elena Alexandrovna worked until her death, in 1965, as watchwoman and cleaner at the church of the Meeting of the Lord and baked prosphora. Father Alexis is commemorated on 23 December, on 7 February and in the Synaxis of the Moscow Saints.