Presbyter
Saint Alexander was born in 1875 in the village of Talitsky Chamylyk, Tambov Province. His father, priest Leonid Orlov, instilled in his son a love for the Church of Christ and a firm faith. Alexander entered the Tambov Theological Seminary, which he graduated from in 1897. In 1903, he was ordained as a priest. During the persecutions against the Church, he was arrested twice and spent several months in prison, but did not abandon his ministry. On August 8, 1935, he was arrested again, and on December 14, he was sentenced to 5 years of deprivation of liberty in the Karaganda corrective labor camp. In 1936, at the Tartaual site, clergymen, including him, conducted a service on the banks of the Churbay-Nura River. Upon learning of this, the authorities initiated a new case accusing him of 'counter-revolutionary activity.' In October 1937, he was sentenced to death and shot on November 2. Saint Alexander Orlov was canonized by the Jubilee Archpastoral Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000.
