Kiev, March 20, 2019
Bishop Sylvester (Malevansky) (L), Archbishop Vasily (Bogdashevsky) (R). Photo: fotopaterik.org, pravoslavnoe-duhovenstvo.ru
The Commission for the Canonization of Saints of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church met yesterday at the Kiev Caves Lavra to consider material on the glorification of four new local saints.
All four of the great Church figures under consideration reposed in the 20th century, and two served as rectors of the Kiev Theological Academy, reports the Kherson Diocese of the UOC.
Following the meeting, the materials on the Academy rectors Bishop Sylvester (Malevansky) of Kanev (+ 1908) and Archbishop Vasily (Bogdashevsky) of Kanev (+ 1933), Academy professor Archpriest Alexander Glagolev (+ 1937), and Priest John Mogilev (+ 1918) were submitted for consideration to the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The Commission also submitted materials on five other candidates for glorification at its late-February meeting.
***
The Union of Orthodox Journalists provides biographical information on the two bishops:
His Grace Bishop Sylvester (Malevansky) was the rector of the Kiev Theological Academy, a theologian, and a spiritual writer. His father was a priest and he studied at the Volyn Theological Seminary. He served for a while as a village priest, and when his matushka reposed, he entered the Kiev Academy, later becoming its rector. He was the abbot of the Kiev-Brotherhood Theophany Monastery, which was destroyed by the Bolsheviks in 1935.
His Eminence Archbishop Vasily (Bogdashevsky) was a rector of the Academy and a doctor of theology. His father was also a priest and he also studied at the Volyn Seminary. He decided to become a priest after he was widowed. He was also tonsured into monasticism at the Kiev Caves Lavra and was later consecrated as a bishop at St. Sophia’s Cathedral in Kiev. In 1921, he signed the appeal of the bishops of the Ukrainian Church to the faithful not to accept the false 1921 council that declared autocephaly. He was meek and accessible to all and deeply faithful. He was a pillar of Orthodoxy in Kiev in the hard times, protecting the holy Church from the renovationists and other schismatics by his sermons.
Follow us on Facebook!
