Saint Alexius was born on March 1, 1879, in the family of priest Ioann Zinoviev. From 1898 to 1904, he studied at the Tula Theological Seminary, after which he was ordained a priest at the church of the village of Voskresenskoe in the Tula province. In 1914, he was transferred to the church in the city of Yefremov. From 1917, he served in the church in the village of Storozha in the Moscow province, where he served for thirteen years, becoming a good and zealous pastor. In 1930, he was arrested, but the parishioners spoke out in defense of the priest, and he was released. In the early 1930s, during collectivization, peasants hid bread from the authorities. In 1932, he was arrested again on charges of anti-Soviet activity and sentenced to five years of imprisonment in a labor camp. After hard labor, he was recognized as disabled and released. Upon returning to the village, he began to serve in the church, but in 1935 the church was seized and used as a grain storage facility. In 1937, he was arrested for conducting services in the homes of believers and for anti-Soviet conversations. On September 15, the NKVD troika sentenced him to execution, and he was shot the following day, September 16, 1937, and buried in an unmarked grave at the Butovo firing range near Moscow.
