Athanasius Sayko

Blessed Athanasius Sayko was a confessor and a fool for Christ in the city of Orel in Russia. He was born in 1887 and departed to the Lord on 5 May 1967, in the eighty-⁠first year of his life. He is commemorated on 5 May, on 7 February with the synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church, and on 8 September with the saints of the Orel metropolis.

He was born in the village of Danichevo in the Volhynia province, into the family of an office worker. From 1905 to 1908 he did military service, and from 1910 to 1916 he worked in various institutions. In 1917 he returned to his native village and worked as a labourer.

In July 1920 he was arrested and taken to Orel, to concentration camp no. 1, where he stayed until November. After his release he settled in the bell tower of the Epiphany cathedral in Orel and from then on began the labour of foolishness for Christ. In the early twenties, after being healed of a grave illness, he entered a monastery with the blessing of his spiritual father. From 1926 to 1931 he sang in the choir of the Resurrection church of the former monastic Athanasius cemetery in Orel.

In April 1931 he was arrested a second time, accused of having agitated among the believers against the measures of the Soviet authorities and the party in the countryside. At the interrogation he admitted that when people asked him about joining the collective farms he had answered no, but he rejected the other charges. A report of the Orel operational sector of the OGPU described him thus: "not expedient to recruit, no further investigation required." On 28 October 1931 the criminal case against several persons, among them Athanasius Sayko, was closed for lack of proof.

In 1932 he was placed in the Orel psychiatric hospital, where he stayed nine years. Many believers came to him in the hospital for advice and consolation. From 1941 to 1948 he lived in Orel, sang in the choir of a church and helped townspeople with household work. During the war years he strengthened people, gave spiritual counsel, warned of misfortunes, and spoke of the fate of soldiers and of those taken captive. From 1948 he was arrested several times and placed in psychiatric hospitals, where he spent another seven years. In the case notes the doctors consistently recorded his religious faith, calm, sociable nature and kindness. People kept coming to him, as before, for help and advice.

He reposed on 5 May 1967 and was buried at the Krestitelskoe cemetery in Orel. Although he spent more than eighteen years in hospitals in all, no mental disorder was ever found in him. The archived investigation files and the case histories from the psychiatric hospitals (of Orel, Voronezh and Tomsk) document his path as a confessor. Veneration of him began during his lifetime and continues to this day; there are testimonies of wonderful help given at prayers to him, some of them recorded even in medical documents.