Alexis Zadvornov

Holy Venerable Martyr Alexis Zadvornov, a hieromonk, was born in 1882 in the village of Korepovo, in the Boris and Gleb district of the Yaroslavl province, in a peasant family. He was shot on 21 November, in the camp where he was serving a sentence, after his arrest on 1 November 1937. He was glorified by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church in the year 2000.

He received basic schooling at the village school. In 1901 he entered the Yug Dorotheus Hermitage in the Yaroslavl province as a novice, where he received the monastic tonsure. In 1912 he was assigned to the church of the Athanasius Convent in the Yaroslavl province and ordained hierodeacon, and later priest. In 1922 he was accused of hiding monastery valuables and sentenced to one year in prison; in 1923 he returned to the monastery and stayed there until it was closed, in 1924. For five years afterwards he served in a chapel near the monastery, and when the authorities closed the chapel too, he moved to the village of Zakedye, in the Boris and Gleb district. On 1 April 1934 he was arrested and charged with counter-⁠revolutionary activity; at the interrogation he admitted that he was opposed to the Soviet authorities and was sentenced to five years in a camp, which he served at Dmitlag, in the Moscow region.

On 1 November 1937 he was arrested in the camp, on the testimony of witnesses who accused him of condemning the Constitution, quoting words from the Bible and being dissatisfied with conditions in the camp. Father Alexis answered that he regarded the camp as a monastery, was content with everything and thanked God for all. He was sentenced to death as a "servant of the religious cult" and shot on 21 November. He is commemorated on 22 November, on 29 May in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo, on 5 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl, and on 5 September in the Synaxis of the Moscow Saints.