12 February — Commemoration of the Holy Hieromartyr Vladimir of Gezgaly
Vladimir Ivanovich Khrishchenovich (sometimes written Khrishchanovich), born in 1876 in Gezgaly, Lida District, Vilna Province, started life as the son of peasants. In 1911, he finished his studies at the Slutsk Theological School and began serving as a psalm reader at the Church of St Nicholas the Wonderworker in Gorki, a village in the Bobruisk District of Minsk Province. As a young man, he had a memorable encounter with Saint John of Kronstadt, who singled him out and gave him Holy Communion with his own hands.
Years passed. In 1930, Bishop Nikolai (Shemetillo) of Slutsk ordained Vladimir Ivanovich to the priesthood. Living in Gorki, Father Vladimir often travelled to the nearby village of Yazyl, which had no priest at the time, to serve at the Church of the Transfiguration.
Then, in 1932, Father Vladimir gave a sermon in the Transfiguration Church that sealed his fate. He told his congregation: “Brothers! The Lord made mankind and does as He wills. We must listen to God and trust Him. We need to come to church and pray — our only rescue is in the Lord.”
On 27 December 1932, Father Vladimir was arrested. They accused him of holding too many services in Yazyl and urging the faithful not to abandon their place of prayer. The authorities fabricated a case against the clergy and laity of Yazyl, and alongside Father Vladimir, the psalm reader, the churchwarden, and several of the parishioners were also arrested.
During questioning, Father Vladimir spoke without fear. He stood by his faith in God, and made no secret of his opposition to the Soviet state's campaign against the clergy. When the investigator pressed him, he answered, “Yes, as a priest, condemned to poverty, I have voiced my frustration with Soviet policy. Yazyl had no priest, but it had a church. The believers asked me to come, so I held services there.”
The letter of Father Vladimir to his family
From the prison cell, he wrote to his family: “My dear, precious wife and children! I hasten to send you my good wishes for the New Year, may it bring new happiness. May God give you the strength to bear every hardship and sorrow caused by cruel people and the devil’s schemes — he rises up to wipe us out. The Almighty will not allow it and will help us shoulder every burden of our cross. I beg you: never forget God, in Whose hands everything rests.” The last lines of this letter read almost like Father Vladimir’s final message. Even under the weight of his circumstances, he tried to comfort those he loved most. He scrawled the note on a scrap of paper, in a hurry — and it never reached its addressees.
A page from the letter of his wife Sophia
Back home, his wife Sophia sent letters to the prison: “Dearest Volodya! With thanks to God we are all well and wish you the same. A Happy New Year to you. Do not worry about us. Write and tell me everything — what they accuse you of and what questions they ask… If you need boots or warm trousers, I shall try to send them… I went to Slutsk; on the night of 18 December there was a search at the Bishop’s house (that means Bishop Nikolai (Shemetillo) — Ed.), and I saw Father Vasily Stepura at the cathedral — he has returned from exile.” Yet Father Vladimir never saw his wife’s letter either. The secret police manipulated their correspondence, hoping to wring more “evidence” out of their suffering.
One passage in Sophia Khrishchenovich’s letter catches the eye. She mentions a strange event said to have happened in the neighbouring Urechye church. Sophia described it like this: “As I was on my way to Slutsk, they told me a story. A ball of fire rolled out from the dome of the Urechye church, sailed through the air and landed over at the airfield. A whole regiment of soldiers was sent for — they prepared to open fire, but held back. One soldier stepped forward and, in the flames, saw not fire, but a Woman from the waist up. She spoke: ‘If you strike at me, I shall strike at you.’ The soldier raised his sabre, but the Woman hurled burning coals at him and vanished. The soldier ended up in hospital. This really happened.” Soon rumour spread in Urechye and all the surrounding villages: in the fire, people said, it was none other than the Mother of God who had appeared. For years, people told the story and passed it on.
The sentence
But none of this halted the hand of the killers. Without trial or any real investigation, on 12 February 1933, Father Vladimir Khrishchenovich, the psalm reader Vasily Kopachenya, and two parishioners — Yakov Polovchenya and Stefan Kopachenya — were sentenced to be shot.
Not long afterwards, Father Vladimir and all those sentenced with him were executed. Their possessions were seized. The authorities forced their families out of Belarus and sent them into exile.
Neighbours from their village received varying prison terms: Semyon Zhuk, ten years in a concentration camp; Yevsevy and Leonty Polovchenya, five years each; Vladimir Nasovich, Iosif Korzun and Vera Sosinovskaya, three years in Siberia. In this way, the parish in Yazyl was laid waste.
On 28 March 1989, the Minsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office fully exonerated Vladimir Ivanovich Khrishchenovich.
The icon of the Holy Hieromartyr Vladimir of Gezgaly
On 28 October 1999, the Synod of the Belarusian Orthodox Church raised Father Vladimir to sainthood, honouring him as a locally venerated saint. A year later, at the great Episcopal Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, for universal veneration.
Saint Vladimir Khrishchenovich is often called Vladimir of Gezgaly — after the place where he was born. People in Gezgaly village, Dyatlovo District, Grodno Region, see him as their guardian in Heaven. The church at the prison colony in Gezgaly now bears his name. Every year, on 12 February (the day of his death) and 28 October (the date of his canonisation), the church celebrates its main feasts.
Procession of the Cross
On the seventy-fifth anniversary of Saint Vladimir’s death, Archbishop Guriy of Novogrudok and Lida led the Divine Liturgy in the church honouring the saint. Afterwards, a procession set off from the memorial cross in the settlement, with the bishop at its head, carrying the saint’s icon to No. 34, the house where Saint Vladimir was born and lived. There, prayers were offered, and a plaque was blessed, marking the home of Dyatlovo’s heavenly protector.
Archbishop Guriy of Novogrudok and Lida
This article drew on materials from sobor.by
