Michael Alabovsky

Mikhail Petrovich Alabovsky (1874-1937) was an archpriest in Kiev, an educator, a founder of orphanages and a man of the monarchist movement, chairman of the Kiev branch of the Union of the Russian People. He was shot on 21 December 1937. He was canonized as a hieromartyr in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Russia. The sources available do not show a canonization by the Russian Orthodox Church inside the country or by any other Church.

Formation and activity in Kiev

He was born on 9 January 1874 in the village of Sayukino, Tambov district, in the family of the psalm-⁠reader Pyotr Vasilievich Alabovsky. He studied at the church school and the seminary in Tambov and in 1893 was sent, with the protection of the aid council, to the Kiev Theological Academy. He joined the Kiev Society for the Spread of Religious and Moral Education in the Spirit of the Orthodox Church, where he became close to the priests John Melnikovsky and Konstantin Terletsky. Father Konstantin drew him into organizing a church-⁠school at Yurkovitsa, on the edge of Kiev. After graduating, in 1897, as candidate of theology, he was teacher at the Alexander-⁠Nicholas school at the church of Saint Macarius and from March priest of that church. In 1902 he founded the Saint Macarius parish brotherhood and an orphanage, in which by 1907 there had been 4,209 children. In 1907 he was appointed teacher of religion at the Fundukleev gymnasium and rector of the house church of Saint Mary Magdalene, and in 1915 he was raised to archpriest. He taught religion in several schools.

In the revolutionary events of 1905 he supported the tsar on behalf of the parish by an address. At the personal invitation of Prince D. P. Golitsyn he was received into the Russian Assembly, in 1906 he was an elector for the city Duma on the list of the Kiev monarchist party and took part in the third congress of the Russian people, and in 1907 became a member of the Committee of non-⁠party Russian electors. He was also acting chairman of the Kiev provincial branch of the Union of the Russian People, and in 1917 chairman. He often gave speeches and talks and was author of addresses to the emperor. During the war he organized, with the Union of the Russian People, an orphanage of Saint Olga and in memory of Stolypin, for the orphans of fallen soldiers. In 1915 he tried to consolidate the right-⁠wing forces of Kiev and took part in a conference of monarchists in Petrograd.

Martyrdom

After the revolution he remained rector of the Alexandrinsky church at the Nicholas school, converted from a house church into a parish one at his request, which lasted until the end of 1920. After its closure, until 22 December 1935, he was rector of the church of the Exaltation of the Cross in the Alexandrovskaya Slobodka district, keeping contact with Schema-⁠Archbishop Anthony (Abashidze) and Bishop Joasaph (Zhevakhov). From 1936 he sometimes served at the Holy Trinity church in Irpin.

On 19 October 1937 he was arrested by the NKVD. The whole judicial procedure, the hearing of witnesses, interrogation and confrontation, was done in one day. He was accused of counter-⁠revolutionary propaganda: Alabovsky is a priest who, under the pretext of religious services, engages in counter-⁠revolutionary work. The NKVD troika of Ukraine for the Kiev region sentenced him to death on 8 December 1937, and the sentence was carried out on 21 December. He left many writings on pedagogy, the history of the Church and the role of Orthodoxy in the life of the state.