Compiled by Hegumen Damascene (Orlovsky)

Hieromartyr Alexis was born on March 1, 1879 in the village of Grekovo-Kazanskoye, Voronezh province, in the family of the priest John Zinoviev. From 1898 to 1904, Alexei studied at the Tula Theological Seminary, after which he was ordained a priest to the church in the village of Voskresenskoye, Chernsky district, Tula province. In 1914, he was transferred to the church in the city of Yefremov.

From 1917, Father Alexis served in the church in the village of Storozha, Moscow Province. During the thirteen years that the priest served here, the Orthodox fell in love with the kind and zealous pastor. When in 1930, during another persecution, he was arrested on charges of allegedly creating anti-Soviet groups in the village, the parishioners unanimously came out in defense of the priest - almost all the residents of the village of Storozha came to the village council and demanded the release of the innocent pastor. The authorities, however, did not release Father Alexis and escorted him to prison in the city of Yefremov, where he was detained for about five weeks, and then he was released, returned to the village and began to serve in the church as before.

In the early thirties, in connection with collectivization, the destruction of peasant farms, the forcible formation of collective farms and the confiscation of all available grain from the peasants, the peasants began to hide it so as not to die of hunger. The plan, according to which the peasants had to hand over grain to the state, exceeded their capabilities and doomed them to death from hunger. Seeing that the authorities in the village were conducting general searches in order to seize bread, the psalmist Fyodor Kananykhin begged Father Alexis to put his grain and flour in the bell tower until the time came. The priest, although he had a premonition that the case could end in arrest for them, could not refuse.

In 1932, the OGPU began to receive information that in the village of Storozha the grain procurement plan had been fulfilled by 8.9% and that the priest Alexy Zinoviev, the psalmist Fyodor Kananykhin and the peasants who often visited the church - Ivan Popov, Vasily Razenkov and Andrei Beregovsky - were allegedly to blame for this. On December 2, 1932, they were all arrested and imprisoned in the city of Yefremov.

On December 4 and 6, the authorities searched the church and found two sacks of rye, a sack of millet and fifteen poods of flour, which were taken away on account of grain procurements.

During the interrogation, the priest, answering the investigator's questions, said that he had met with the psalmist and the peasants and said that the Soviet government had strangled the individual farmers, did not allow them to live, that life used to be better.

The psalmist, summoned for interrogation, said: "The bread found in the church partially belonged to me. I was forced to hide the bread because I saw that under the Soviet regime there was a selection of bread, and although I did not have any task, I still hid my bread. For me, in general, under the Soviet regime, it is a new thing to make the selection of grain from the peasants, in former times under the tsar this was not the case, and, in any case, no one would have hidden the grain. And now, of course, there is nothing surprising that the peasants are beginning to hide bread." In addition, he said that he had proved to the peasants that collective farms were corvee and ruin and did not give them anything.

Similar testimony was given by the peasants, with the exception of Ivan Popov, who said: "I do not plead guilty to the charge brought against me, but I do not deny that I did meet with the kulaks Beregovsky and Razenkov, but this connection was purely comradely. I do not deny that my father's farm was kulak. Of the bread found in the church, nothing belonged to me."

On February 19, 1933, the troika of the OGPU sentenced the priest Alexei Zinoviev to five years in a corrective labor camp, and he was sent to hard labor on the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. Psalmist Fyodor Kananykhin and peasants Andrei Beregovsky and Vasily Razenkov were sentenced to three years in prison, who were sent to the White Sea-Baltic Canal. Only Ivan Popov was sentenced to one year of forced labor and released from custody. Hard work so upset the health of Priest Alexis Zinoviev that he was recognized as disabled and after six months in a concentration camp he was released. He returned to the village of Storozha and began to serve in the church.

In 1935, the authorities seized the temple and began to use it as a granary; from that time on, Father Alexis began to serve molebens in the homes of pious parishioners. This continued until a new wave of persecution in 1937.

On August 16, representatives of the NKVD interrogated one of the false witnesses, a peasant from the village of Storozha. He testified that the priest was allegedly one of the most active organizers of the counter-revolutionary uprising in the village of Storozha and allegedly said that it was not necessary to join a collective farm, that collective farm construction was contrary to God, that godlessness would flourish in collective farm construction, that God would be forgotten; In an individual household, they are their own masters, and there they will be slaves. "As a result of his activities and the agitation of the kulaks, the collective farms were poorly organized. Having a close connection with the kulaks in the village of Storozha, upon his return to the village after serving his sentence, Zinoviev restored contact with the kulaks who had been participants in the counter-revolutionary uprising, and continues it to this day. In their homes, he often serves molebens and all-night vigils. In the autumn of 1935, after the citizens' decree to pour grain into the church, Zinoviev told the faithful: "It is a sin to pour grain into the church, there should be granaries for grain. The Church is the house of God, where the word of God is preached. We need to vacate the church and serve in it. The Lord will punish you for blasphemy." In June 1936, Zinoviev said: "The Lord God is punishing you for blasphemy. We need to arrange prayers now so that the Lord would give rain." As a result, members of the church council came to the village council to ask for permission to hold a prayer service for rain in the field. In June, there was a service in one of the houses in the village, and after that there was anti-Soviet talk about elections to the village soviets, and priest Zinoviev said: "We need to elect God-fearing, good people to the councils."

On August 24, 1937, Father Alexis was arrested and imprisoned in the Taganka prison in Moscow. During the interrogation, the investigator said to the priest:

—The investigation has materials that in 1935 you systematically conducted church services in the homes of believers.