Dimitry Surmeli of Oleksandriia

Archpriest Dimitry Konstantinovich Surmeli (1878-1937) was the second priest of the Protection church in Oleksandriia and was shot in 1937. He was glorified locally as a hieromartyr in the Oleksandriia diocese (Ukrainian Orthodox Church) by decision of the Synod of 5 January 2013, together with Adrian Vozhakov; he is commemorated on 22 August (4 September by the new calendar).

He was born in 1878 in the village of Nikolaevka, Ananiev district, Kherson province, in the family of the priest Constantine Surmeli, and was raised in Orthodox tradition. He graduated from the Odesa seminary and on 24 September 1899 entered service as psalm-⁠reader at the church of Saint Nicholas in Novovorontsovka. He was ordained deacon on 4 August 1902 and priest on 6 August, on the feast of the Transfiguration. On 22 August 1902 he was appointed to the Transfiguration church in Moiseyevka, Oleksandriia district, where he also directed the parish school. On 24 October 1907 he was transferred to the Kazan Icon church in Kozyrivka, where he was also a teacher of religion. With his wife Cleopatra Maximovna he raised four daughters.

In 1930 he was exiled to the North for three years, for "keeping small silver coins." After his return he served as second priest of the Protection church in Oleksandriia. On 6 December 1937, together with Agafia Avramenko, chairwoman of the church community, he was arrested. He was accused that, after the closing of the church, together with Adrian Vozhakov and nuns of the town, he went from house to house conducting "under cover of religious service" counter-⁠revolutionary propaganda, including against the elections to the Supreme Soviet. He admitted it only in part. On 8 December 1937 the NKVD troika of the Nikolaev region sentenced him to death, and the sentence was, according to the documents, carried out on 27 December 1937. In 1960 the Kirovohrad regional court found that the testimony on which the accusation had rested had no basis.

The Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church numbered him among the locally venerated saints of the Oleksandriia diocese on 5 January 2013, approved the icon, troparion and kontakion, and ordered his commemoration together with Adrian Vozhakov.