His mother, Zinaida Petrovna (née Slesarskaya) was a daughter of the head librarian of Kiev Theological Academy.
In one week's time he was set free but had no vote rights as a son of "cult worker" (Soviet term for a priest).
In 1941, after the Great Patriotic War began, he was made a priest by Archbishop Veniamin (Novitsky) and served in the Pokrov Church in Kiev.
Alexej also gave Jews fake christening birth certificates left from his father, priest Alexander Glagolev.
Glagolev family took a huge risk, hiding Jews was punished by execution, but they continued doing it despite Tatiana's pregnancy (she gave birth to Maria in 1943).
In 1945, he wrote a detailed letter about the Jews he has saved to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of Ukraine Nikita Khrushchev.
<...> In 1936, this fragile-looking intellectual was publicly carrying the cross taken off a Church of Nikola the Kind and despite the threats from Komsomol members kept it in his flat.
He was not afraid in 1946 to host in the church the family ordered by Court to leave Kiev within 24 hours, because NKVD officer occupied their flat.