Alexander Filimonovich Skalsky

Born in 1876 into a priest's family in the Volyn Province. On August 15, 1886, he began his service in the Podolsk Spiritual Consistory. On December 29 of the same year, he was appointed psalm reader at the Exaltation of the Cross Church in Kamianets-Podilskyi by Bishop Anatoly of Balta.

On May 2, 1891, he was accepted into the Turkestan Diocese by Bishop Neofit (Nevodchikov) and appointed psalm reader in the stanitsa of Zaytsevskaya (now the city of Chilik) and law teacher at the parish school.

On August 8, 1893, he was ordained a deacon by Bishop Grigory (Poletaev). On June 25, 1894, he was transferred to the Alexander Nevsky Church in the city of Margelan and became a law teacher at the parish school in Margelan. On February 21, 1899, he was ordained a priest by Bishop Arkady (Karpinsky) and appointed priest of the church-wagon on the Central Asian Railway.

On November 30, 1899, he was transferred to the church in the village of Kazan-Bogorodichnoe (now the village of Uzynagash). On October 16, 1900, he was transferred as the rector of the Church of St. Alexander Nevsky and St. Mary Magdalene at the Vernensky Children's Shelter and appointed law teacher.

On March 12, 1902, he was awarded the nabedrennik.

On June 17, 1904, he was awarded the velvet skufia.

On May 6, 1907, he was appointed rector of the Church of St. Nicholas on Kuchugury in the city of Verny. He served in this church for 25 years until the day of his arrest.

Protopriest Alexander was one of the most active and versatile priests in the city of Verny. His sermons were heard in the Turkestan Cathedral, he conducted processions and pilgrimages with the people to local shrines, participated in the activities of the Temperance Society at the Episcopal Church, and gave reports on the activities of sectarians at pastoral meetings. It seems that no spiritual celebration or initiative took place without the involvement of the tireless Father Alexander.

Post-revolutionary newspapers called him a priest who loved the people. On the first day of Easter 1918, accompanying Bishop Pimen, he visited with him the wounded soldiers from the revolutionary units that suppressed the counter-revolutionary Cossack rebellion of 1918 in the city of Verny. The purpose of the visit was to stop fratricide and revolutionary turmoil.

On December 10, 1932, he was arrested by the GPU. In prison, he contracted typhus, from which he died on January 20, 1933.

Was glorified at the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000.