Kiev, August 18, 2021
Photo: blogspot.com
Meeting at the Kiev Cave Lavra yesterday under the chairmanship of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church blessed the glorification of several locally-venerated saints.
Among the new saints are three hieromartyrs, a holy hierarch, and a venerable monastic, reports the Information-Education Department of the Ukrainian Church.
With the blessing of the Holy Synod, the Boryspil Diocese will celebrate Hieromartyr Mikhail Podelsky, Presbyter of Zazimye (+1937) on November 27; the Rivne Diocese will celebrate Holy Hierarch Hierothy of Ostrog (+1871) on April 30; the Balta Diocese will celebrate Venerable Anthony of Balta (+1960) on August 22; and the Kirovograd Diocese will celebrate the Hieromartyrs Nikolai Vinogradov (+1931) and Platon Kupchevsky (+1932), Presbyters, on June 15.
The materials for their canonizations were first considered by the UOC’s Commission for the Canonization of Saints at its session in July.
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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