Kiev, July 27, 2021
Photo: pravoslavie.ru
At a future session, the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will examine materials concerning the possible canonization of 5 ascetics of piety of the 19th-20th centuries.
The materials were first considered by the UOC’s Commission for the Canonization of Saints at its session under the chairmanship of His Eminence Metropolitan John of Kherson and Taurida at the Kiev Caves Lavra yesterday, reports the Kherson Diocese.
The ascetics of piety under consideration include a hierarch and four priests: Bishop Hierothy (Lobachevsky +1871), Schema-Archimandrite Anthony (Nozdrin +1960), Archpriest Platon Kupchevsky (+1932), Archpriest Nikolai Vinogradov (+1931), and Fr. Mikhail Podelsky (+1937).
The Commission sent its conclusions to His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine and the UOC Holy Synod.
The Synod also canonized 5 ascetics of piety for local veneration at its December session.
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Bishop Hierothy served the Church his entire life, as a seminary teacher, a builder of monasteries, and as a cleric, including 26 years as a hierarch. He labored in monasticism from the age of 31. In 1828, he was appointed abbot of Holy Trinity Monastery in the village of Derman, and in 1839, he was actively involved in reuniting Uniates with Orthodoxy.
Schema-Archimandrite Anthony labored in asceticism at the Holy Protection-St. Theodosius Monastery in Odessa from the age of 33. He was ordained a hieromonk 3 years later, and later appointed abbot of the monastery’s Elevation of the Cross Skete in the village of Lupolovo, where he fought the heresy of renovationism for many years. His God-pleasing labors drew the ire of the soviet authorities, and he ending up spending 6 years in the camps. With the arrival of Romanian troops, he received an appointment from the Romanian Orthodox Mission. In 1946, after 25-year forced absence from his native monastery, he was blessed to return, where he served as a father confessor until his death. He had the gift of ceaseless noetic prayer. He reposed on August 9/22, 1960, just after receiving Holy Communion.
Archpriest Platon Kupchevsky was ordained to the priesthood at the tender age of 21. Fr. Platon resisted the Renovationists, and sided with Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd in the battle with Metropolitan Sergius, who pledged loyalty to the Soviet Union in 1927. He was arrested several times throughout his ministry for preaching against the Soviet Union as a satanic power. After being arrested in 1931 and sentenced to exile in 1932, his further fate is unknown.
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