Daniel Alferov

Holy Hieromartyr Daniel Alferov, a priest, was born in 1870 in the village of Troina, in the Bobrov district of the Voronezh province, in the family of the peasant Vasily Alferov. He received the crown of martyrdom by shooting in the night of 6 March 1930, at Voronezh, together with the priest Alexander Vislyansky. He is commemorated on 6 March, on 7 February, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, and on 17 September, in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Voronezh Metropolis.

After graduating from the seminary he was ordained priest and, even under the rule of the atheists, served in the village of Nikolskoe, in the Gremyache district, next to the parish of Father Alexander Vislyansky. Before the revolution he took part in popular religious movements such as the Union of the Russian People, whose members regularly took part in processions.

Alexander Vislyansky was born in 1870 in the village of Arkhangelskoe, in the Zemlyansk district, in the family of the psalm-⁠reader Jacob Vislyansky. He graduated from the Voronezh seminary in 1893, was a teacher of singing, in 1894 was ordained deacon at the church of the Tyunino convent, and on 30 March 1897 priest at the church of the Archangel in the village of Rogozhino. In the second half of the 1920s he served in the village of Semidesyatnoe. He fought bravely against the Renovationists, viewed with doubt the negotiations of Metropolitan Sergius with the Soviet authorities, and commemorated at the services only the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, Metropolitan Peter.

In 1929 Soviet power began to destroy the peasantry, and with the peasants the priests, who shared all their needs, were also arrested and persecuted. At the end of 1929 and the beginning of 1930 the OGPU made mass arrests among the clergy and peasants of the Voronezh region. The priests Alexander Vislyansky and Daniel Alferov were arrested at the beginning of February 1930, imprisoned at Voronezh and questioned at once. Father Alexander told the investigator that believers had asked him whether they must hand over all their surplus grain, whether the end of the world was near, and whether the life in which everything is taken from them would come to an end. He had answered that the grain levy should be met as each could, that the end of the world is hidden from us, as the Gospel makes clear, that enemies must be loved, and that we must pray for the atheists. The Church had helped the needy, whether an expropriated kulak or a poor man. Father Daniel answered that he had no ties beyond those of his service, that he had not agitated against the authorities and did not know whether others did. On 5 March 1930 the OGPU troika sentenced two priests and others to death, and the rest to years in prison. Fathers Alexander and Daniel were shot in the next night, on 6 March 1930, and buried in an unknown common grave on the edge of Voronezh.