On October 14 (October 1 on the Julian Calendar) we commemorate Saint Alexis Stavrovsky, priest, martyr under the Communist yoke, who reposed in the Lord in 1918.
Holy Martyr Archpriest Alexei (Alexis) Stavrovsky was born in 1834 in the St. Petersburg province to a priest's family. He received his education first at the Alexander Nevsky Theological School, then at the St. Petersburg Theological Seminary, and finally at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, which he graduated from in 1861 with the title of candidate of theology. With this title, he went to teach geography at the Alexander Nevsky School. Soon he married and was ordained a priest. He was given the service of a military priest in the Peter and Paul Church of the military hospital in St. Petersburg, and he served here for 34 years.
In 1896, Archpriest Alexei Stavrovsky was appointed rector of the Cathedral of St. Spyridon of Trimythous in the Admiralty and dean of the St. Petersburg naval churches. During his long service (almost 56 years), he served in only two churches. Both churches were significantly improved by him. Life in them was in full swing. Archpriest Alexei Stavrovsky had a huge influence on the situation of all military clergy. Working hard in various public fields, possessing the gift of preaching, he was appointed dean of all churches of the military and naval departments and strove to improve the situation of military priests. In addition, he worked hard as a member of the society for collecting funds for benefits for students of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. He was one of those 300 people who, on the day of the three hundredth anniversary of the reign of the House of Romanov, received the honor of being presented to the Emperor as outstanding public and state figures. The family of Father Alexei Stavrovsky, for his services to the Fatherland, was granted hereditary nobility.
In 1918, after the murder of Moisei Uritsky in Petrograd, 500 innocent people taken hostage by the new government were shot in one night by order of the Petrograd Cheka. Among them was the 84-year-old military priest Father Alexei Stavrovsky. Together with a group of those arrested, he was first held in one of the prisons in Petrograd, and then transferred to Kronstadt.
During his imprisonment, he retained an amazing cheerfulness of spirit, consoled his fellow prisoners, and even gave them communion with spare Holy Gifts. Soon after the prisoners were transferred to Kronstadt, they were taken out of prison, lined up, and told that as a reprisal for the murder of Uritsky, every tenth of them would be shot, and the rest would be released.
Father Alexei stood ninth, and after him, tenth, stood a young priest. Turning to him, Father Alexei said: "I am already old, I do not have long to live; in life I have received everything that was possible; my wife is an old woman, my children are all on their feet; go with God, and I will take your place." And, having said this, he took the place of the young priest and was shot.
The date of his death is not exactly known, but it was probably at the end of September or in October 1918. The place of burial is also unknown, most likely it is in the waters of the Gulf of Finland, on the beam of the Tolbukhin lighthouse, where in 1918 barges with hostages were supposedly sunk.