Zerchaninov was born on 9 March 1848 in the village of Bolshoye Murashkino (now Nizhny Novgorod Oblast) to the family of an Eastern Orthodox Church priest.

Released at the request of Natalia Ushakova on 21 February 1901, he worked without a break on a farm, which he bought in the Nizhny Novgorod region shortly before his arrest.

He was joined by the eldest son Julius, as a priest and abbot, after Father Aleksei Zerchaninov's union to the Catholic Church.

According to the author, it almost photographically depicts the life of the Russian Orthodox clergy and what it offers to the secular power.

In 1905, Zerchaninov became, along with Ivan Deubner and Eustachios Susalev, a priest of his native church united with Rome celebrating Mass in Saint Petersburg.

He was deeply moved and impressed by the kindness and good humor with which he was received by the successor of Peter, so unlike the familiar attitude of the Russian Orthodox bishops to the clergy.

After March 1923 he headed the northern part of the Russian Greek Catholic Church Exarchate.