Constantine Veretsky

Holy Hieromartyr Constantine Veretsky (Konstantin Alexandrovich Veretsky) was an archpriest, born on 21 May (3 June) 1874 in the village of Petrovskoe, Bakhmut district, Yekaterinoslav province, and shot on 23 February 1918 at Rostov-⁠on-⁠Don. The Russian Church glorified him among the saints in 2018, as a holy hieromartyr. He is commemorated on 10 February by the old calendar (23 February by the new) and in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Russia. Our calendar gives the commemoration on 25 January, which does not fit the source.

He was born into the family of the priest Alexander Ivanovich Veretsky and his wife Serafima Filippovna. In 1892 he graduated from the Yekaterinoslav seminary and between 1898 and 1911 taught religion in the Novomoskovsk and Pavlograd districts of Yekaterinoslav province and in the schools of Odessa. In 1911, after marrying Evlampia Ivanovna Orlova, Archbishop Agapitus (Vishnevsky) of Yekaterinoslav and Mariupol ordained him priest and appointed him rector of the church in the village of Eiskoe Ukrepleniye, in the Don Host Region. In 1913 he was moved to the church of All Saints in Rostov-⁠on-⁠Don.

After the beginning of the civil war, the priest Constantine Veretsky called in his sermons for peace and warned of the terrible tragedy to which fratricidal war might lead. In his church he also read the epistle of Patriarch Tikhon of 19 January (1 February) 1918, "On the anathematizing of those who do lawlessness and persecutors of the faith in the Orthodox Church". Despite the threats and the displeasure of those who supported the Bolsheviks, Father Constantine did not leave Rostov at the end of February 1918 with Denikin's army retreating from the city. On 23 February 1918 he was arrested and shot. He was buried in the churchyard of All Saints, which was closed in 1935 and destroyed in 1966.

From 2011 the canonization commission of the Don metropolis began to gather testimonies of the death of Constantine Veretsky. In the gathering the commission was helped by E. V. Rosinskaya, a relative (grand-⁠niece) of Constantine Veretsky, who wrote a book of memoirs about Father Constantine and his family, "...And You Will Find Rest for Your Souls". On 15 October 2018, at the session of the Holy Synod of the Russian Church, the priest Constantine Veretsky was numbered among the saints, the new martyrs and confessors of Russia. His commemoration was set for 10 (23) February. On 29 October 2019 the Holy Synod approved the texts of a prayer, troparion and kontakion to the holy hieromartyr Constantine Veretsky.