Jacob Alferov

Holy Hieromartyr Jacob Alferov, a priest, was born in 1878 in the village of Shlamka in Samara province, in the family of the peasant Ioann Alferov. Before the revolution he was a school teacher. After the revolution, when the persecution of the Church began, he received ordination as a priest and served in the churches of the Samara diocese. In 1930 the authorities arrested him, sentenced him to three years in a concentration camp and sent him to forced labour on the White Sea-⁠Baltic Canal. In 1933 Father Jacob returned home. With the intensifying of the persecution, in 1937 he was arrested again.

He was arrested in the same case with Archbishop Alexander (Trapitsyn) of Samara and with other priests: Ioann Suldin, Ioann Smirnov, Alexander Organov, Alexander Ivanov, Vyacheslav Infantov and Vasily Vitevsky. The archbishop was accused of having united in Kuibyshev all the priests without parishes, mainly those who returned from exile, creating authority for them among the faithful as sufferers for the faith, which was used for anti-⁠Soviet, insurgent and counter-⁠revolutionary, fascist agitation. Neither Bishop Alexander nor the priests returned from exile and the camps, arrested with him, admitted guilt, and they rejected all the charges. On 21 December 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced them to death.

Archbishop Alexander and the priests Ioann Suldin, Ioann Smirnov, Alexander Organov and Alexander Ivanov were shot on 14 January 1938. Because of the mass of executions, the other priests fell into the next group of the condemned. The priests Vyacheslav Infantov, Vasily Vitevsky and Jacob Alferov were shot on 8 February 1938. All the shot hieromartyrs were buried in an unknown common grave.

He is commemorated on 14 January, on 7 February, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, and on 12 August, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Samara (new style, the second being a movable day).