He graduated from high school in Mariupol and after, attended Moscow Theological Academy.
Vasiliev served as rector of the Church of Saint Nikita the Martyr in Krylatskoye under Moscow.
On February 15, 1931, he was arrested in Moscow in the case of Sergei Solovyov and was accused of espionage and counterrevolutionary literature.
As a condition for the withdrawal of charges, suggesting a return to Orthodoxy, from which Father Alexander refused.
Father Vasiliev in 1934 was transferred to a camp in the Chita region, which already has a group of "Stakhanovite" to be able to financially support his wife and daughters.