Constantine Alekseev

Holy Hieromartyr Constantine Alekseev, a priest, was born on 3 November 1873 in the village of Novoe in the Kamyshlov district, in the family of a church servant. His full name was Constantine Nikolaevich Alekseev. In 1884 he began studies at the theological school of the Dormition monastery in Dalmatov, which he completed at the Kamyshlov school at the diocese's expense. He then entered the first class of the Perm seminary but did not continue his studies.

From the age of twenty he served as a psalm-⁠reader in churches of the Shadrinsk and Yekaterinburg districts. In 1894 he married. Having received a certificate as teacher in a parish church school, in November 1897 he was ordained deacon. For ten years he served at the church of Tsar Constantine in the village of Galkinskoe, then briefly at the church of Saint Nicholas in the Verkh-⁠Neyvinsk works, and in 1908-1910 he was a cleric of the Kazan Mother of God church in the Nizhne-⁠Isetsk works. On 14 March 1910 he was ordained priest and took the second priest's post at the Descent of the Holy Spirit church in the Kyshtym works, where he was also teacher of religion at the one-⁠class school; his service there lasted two years. On 13 December 1912 he was transferred to the Holy Trinity church in the village of Troitskoe, Kamyshlov district, where he served until 1918.

Father Constantine was a true shepherd to his parishioners. His whole life was filled with active love for people and care for their spiritual and material needs. Giving himself wholly to priestly service, he stayed far from politics.

In the first days of the October coup of 1917 a city soviet was set up in Kamyshlov, and in March 1918 volost and village soviets were formed throughout the district. The peasants did not welcome the new authorities. The inhabitants of Troitskoe made one of the first attempts in the Kamyshlov district to rise against the new power: at the end of January 1918, at a village assembly, they decided to raise the people at the sound of the bells and abolish the village soviet. The Bolsheviks learned of it and called on representatives of the district soviet for help. On 30 January 1918 the alarm bell rang in Troitskoe. The peasants gathered at the volost office. The Bolsheviks who came from Kamyshlov tried to explain the tasks of Soviet power, but nobody listened. Fearing violence, the members of the village soviet fired through a locked door, killing three people and wounding three more. The soviet could not be abolished, but its orders were still ignored. In June 1918 the Kamyshlov executive committee decided to put into effect in the district the decree on the grain monopoly, which provided for requisitioning bread from the population; the volost soviets answered that applying it was impossible. Resistance lasted until many punitive detachments of the Red army were brought into the area.

In the summer of 1918 the Red Army began to retreat under pressure from Czechoslovak forces. The inhabitants of most Ural villages and works, worn out by the arbitrary rule of the local soviets, welcomed the Czechs as liberators. In retreat, the Red soldiers plundered and shot peaceful people, took hostages and burned houses and even whole villages. They showed special hatred toward clergy. On 14/27 July 1918 armed Red soldiers came to the home of the priest Constantine Alekseev, arrested him and took him first to Bogdanovich station, then, retreating, to Antratsit station. Father Constantine was taken along with other hostages. On 17/30 July the first Peasant Communist Regiment left Antratsit and retreated toward Yegorshino station. By then the rector of the Holy Trinity church in Troitskoe, the priest Constantine Alekseev, had been shot. The exact date of this tragic event is not known.

By decision of the Holy Synod of 17 July 2002 the priest Constantine Alekseev was glorified in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia of the Yekaterinburg diocese. He is commemorated on 11 February, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Yekaterinburg, and on 7 February, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, in the new style.