Venerable Martyr Alexandra (Dyachkova Alexandra Ivanovna) was born in 1893 in the village of Chernogolovka, Ivanovskaya volost, Bogorodsky uyezd, Moscow Governorate, into a peasant family. In 1914 she entered the Trinity-Alexandra Monastery in Klin uyezd of the Moscow Governorate, not far from the village of Akatovo, as a novice. After the monastery was closed in 1927, Alexandra settled in one of the villages near the monastery walls. From 1930, supervision over nuns living near closed monasteries was intensified, repressions against them became harsher, and Alexandra returned to her parents’ home.
Through the efforts of the novice Alexandra, a priest was appointed to their village church, and she undertook to arrange his life in the new place.
In 1931 Alexandra, among other monastics, was arrested and imprisoned in the city of Noginsk. She was accused of agitation against the creation of collective farms, sentenced to five years in a corrective labor camp, and sent to work on the construction of the White Sea–Baltic Canal. After her release in 1934, Alexandra settled in her native village, but after her mother’s death she left for the Volokolamsk district. There was less risk of being arrested there as someone who had served a camp term and had settled near Moscow. The novice Alexandra began living with acquaintances in various villages, doing day labor. In 1937 she took a job as a watchwoman and cleaner at the Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos in the village of Shestakovo, Volokolamsk district.
In February 1938 she was arrested again and imprisoned in Volokolamsk. On the basis of false testimony, Alexandra was accused of discontent with Soviet authority and of counterrevolutionary and anti-Soviet statements. However, during interrogation she firmly denied her guilt, saying that she had only urged collective farmers to attend church and pray to God. The NKVD troika for Moscow Region sentenced the novice Alexandra Dyachkova to execution by shooting. She was shot on March 14, 1938, and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo firing range near Moscow.
She was numbered among the saints of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia on August 18, 2004, by decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.
