Born on July 27, 1875, in the village of Talitsky Chamlyk, Usman County, Tambov Province, into a priest's family. In 1897, he graduated from the Tambov Theological Seminary in the second class.

He married Kapitolina Andreyevna. Children - Varvara, Nina, Zoya, Lidia, Mikhail, Serafim, Leonid.

He was soon ordained as a deacon, and in 1903, as a priest of the Nikolaev Church in the village of Chamlyk-Nikolskoye.

In 1929, he was twice arrested by the police at the village council and convicted. The first time, he was accused of belonging to the "old church synodal orientation" and sentenced to imprisonment. In the same year, he was re-arrested on charges of "failing to pay the state tax." He spent 2 months in the Lipetsk prison.

From 1929 to 1935, he served as the rector of the Nikolaev Church in the village of Chamlyk-Nikolskoye. In 1930, he was arrested on charges of "concealing church bread and anti-socialist agitation." He was held in the district police department and released without trial a month later.

On August 8, 1935, he was arrested again on charges of being an active participant in a church-monarchist organization and expressing dissatisfaction with the policies of the Communist Party and the government. He was tried in a group case titled "Case of Priest Orlov A.L., Yemelin V.F., and others, Voronezh Region, 1935."

From the case materials:

"My own son Mikhail Orlov was arrested by the OGPU, sentenced to 5 years, and exiled to the White Sea-Baltic Canal, where he is currently located, I have no information about him." I have been working as a priest for 32 years. After the schism in the Orthodox Church, I remained a supporter of the old church current and never adhered to any other church orientation and never will. If I leave the position of a priest for any reason and do not work in the church, I will never renounce the rank of a priest due to my beliefs and will die as a priest."

On December 14 of the same year, the Voronezh Regional Court sentenced him to 5 years in a labor correctional camp. He served his sentence in the prison of the city of Kozlov. In January 1936, he was sent from Michurinsk prison to the Karaganda camp of the NKVD (Karlag).

On February 8, 1936, he arrived at the Tartak station of Karlag.

On September 16, 1937, he was arrested in the camp hospital at the Tartak station of Karlag, where he ended up as an invalid. He was accused of "conducting counter-revolutionary agitation among the prisoners of Tartak" while being in the hospital area, having organized a group of invalids. He did not plead guilty. On October 31, 1937, he was sentenced to execution by the NKVD Troika of the USSR for the Karaganda region.

He was executed on November 2, 1937, in Karlag. The place of burial is unknown.

On June 22, 1992, he was rehabilitated by the prosecutor of the Lipetsk region for the 1935 repressions.

In August 2000, the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church canonized him as a saint among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia for universal church veneration.