Ukrainian Orthodoxy		Orthodoxie ukrainienne

Saints of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Dr. Alexander Roman (email)

Other Ukrainian Saints

Kozak Saints of Ukraine

St. John the Ukrainian Confessor under the Turkish Yoke was a Kozak who was captured by the Tatars in battle. He was taken to Crimea where he was sold to a wealthy Turkish family as their servant-slave. While in captivity, John lived a life of deep prayer. He walked to an Orthodox Church that was boarded up and closed by the Turks and stood in front of it as he prayed the Psalms from memory. Many Kozaks, in fact, knew the Psalter off by heart in case they were captured in battle and so that they would be able to pray them from memory, as well as the Jesus Prayer.

God glorified His servant, John with miracles that convinced his Turkish masters of their slave’s great sanctity. When the father of the house was away on business, the mother prepared a dish of rice"holubtsi." The family members remarked how terrible it was that the father was so far away and could not enjoy this delicious food. John was then inspired to tell the family to fetch the father’s most favourite, decorated dish. He then put "holubtsi" on it and took it into his room to the laughter of everyone in the house. He placed the dish on his little bed and then begged God with tears to perform this miracle to demonstrate Christ’s power before this family. The dish was then transported miraculously to the father. He brought home his decorated dish as proof that he had eaten the holubtsi, but wondered how they got to him, along with his dish!

After St John’s repose in the Lord, miracles would not cease from His Relics. The Turkish family actually helped build the first Church to house His Relics at Procopion. When this was destroyed by the Turks, the Orthodox Christians built another Shrine for St John at New Procopion. Three Orthodox Churches glorified this New Ukrainian Confessor: Constantinople, Greece and Russia. He is now accepted as a Saint by the entire Orthodox Church. The Greeks have a special veneration for him whom they call: "Agios Ioannis o Rossos."

Another Ukrainian New Martyr is St Pakhomy (Pachomius) who was born in Ukraine, as the Greek Menologion relates. Taken captive by the Tatars, he was sold to a Turk in the city of Usaki (Philadelphia in Anatolia). He spent 17 years in servitude, enduring abuse for his faith. Upon obtaining his freedom, Pakhomy went to Mount Athos where he became an ascetic under the guidance of his staretz, the Priestmonk Joseph.

Pakhomy then resettled in the Kapsokalyvia Monastery, where he lived under the staretz, Akakios. Pakhomy then returned to Usaki, where he openly confessed himself a Christian. Arrested by the Turks, Saint Pakhomy refused to accept the Muslim faith and was beheaded in Usaki on the day of the Ascension of our Lord, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, 7 May AD1780. The relics of St Pakhomy the New Martyr are in the monastery of St John the Theologian, where the Apostle wrote the Book of Revelation, on the Isle of Patmos.

Other Ukrainian New Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke include Constantius the Ukrainian and Nikita, a Ukrainian or Belorussian born in Albania who became a monk at the Ukrainian Monastery of St Panteleimon on Mt. Athos and was martyred for Christ in the nineteenth century on April 4.

St. Nicephorus the Confessor, mentioned in Metropolitan Ilarion Ohienko's work, "The Canonization of Saints in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church," was recently glorified. He was a staunch defender of Orthodoxy against Poland's intrusion into Ukrainian Church affairs through the Unia and suffered a martyr's death through starvation in prison.

The Greek founder of the City of Mariupol, the "City of Mary" on the Aziv Sea was recently glorified a Saint by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. St Ignatios Metropolitan of Mariupol ("Gotfeysky" and "Kefaysky"). In 1778, he brought the Greek community of Crimea to Mariupol as a result of enduring difficulties experienced by living under the Crimean Tatars.

The Holy Elder St Daniel Achynsky was born in the 18th century in Ukraine and his feast is 15 April (reposed in 1843). Sent Siberia, he became a miracle-worker in the midst of hardship.

Another Ukrainian Saint of this period is the recently glorified Saint John of the Holy Mountain (Svyatohorsky) whose feast is Ukrainian Independence Day, 24 April. Devoted to the Jesus Prayer, he relied on it throughout his period of blindness and died in great holiness.

Finally, the Akathist and Service to St Tikhon of Kaluga emphatically affirms that he was born in Kyiv and later moved northwards.

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