Dionysius Sosnovsky

Bishop Dionysius Sosnovsky (in the world Pavel Ivanovich Sosnovsky) was bishop of Izmail, vicar of the Chișinău diocese, born in 1859 into the family of a deacon in the Tambov governorate and killed by the Bolsheviks on 4 February 1918, near Kiev. He is venerated as a saint with local veneration in the Odessa diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, commemorated on the Sunday nearest the day of his death, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church. His name was entered in the draft list of the new martyrs in the preparation of the canonization made by ROCOR in 1981, but the list was published only at the end of the 1990s.

In 1876 he graduated from the 2nd theological school of Tambov, in 1885 from the Irkutsk seminary, and for two years worked as a village teacher. On 3 October 1885 he was ordained deacon by Bishop Vitaly (Iosifov) of Tambov, for the church of Cosmas and Damian in the village of Verkhnyaya Yaroslavka. In 1888 he was widowed and in the same year entered the Moscow Theological Academy; on 8 May 1892 he was tonsured a monk with the name Dionysius, and on 25 May 1892 ordained hieromonk. In the same year he graduated from the academy with the degree of candidate of theology and was put in the service of theological education: he was superintendent of the Warsaw theological school (1892 to 1896) and rector of the Irkutsk seminary (1896 to 1898). In 1896 he was raised to the rank of archimandrite. He came to Irkutsk in March 1897, was a member of the Irkutsk committee of the Orthodox Missionary Society and carried out the duties of chairman of the diocesan school council. From 1898 to 1900 he was abbot of the Boris and Gleb monastery at Dmitrov, Moscow diocese; from 1900 to 1901 he was called to serve at Saint Petersburg; from 1901 to 1906 he was abbot of the Nicholas hermitage of Terebino, Tver diocese, and from 1902 to 1906 dean of the monasteries of the Tver diocese; from 1906 to 1908 he was again called to serve at Saint Petersburg.

By decree of the Holy Synod of 31 August 1908 the Chelyabinsk vicariate of the Orenburg diocese was established. On 12 September 1908 at Saint Petersburg, in the meeting hall of the Holy Synod, in the presence of the Chief Procurator P. P. Izvolsky, the naming as bishop of Chelyabinsk took place. On 14 September 1908, a Sunday, in the Holy Trinity church of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra the consecration of Archimandrite Dionysius as bishop of Chelyabinsk was performed. He lived at Orenburg, being counted abbot of the Makary monastery, but in fact performing beside the diocesan bishops Joachim (Levitsky) and Theodosius (Oltarzhevsky) the function of their deputy. During the diocesan bishops' leaves he governed the Orenburg diocese temporarily (May to July 1909, June to July 1913 and 1914). By decision of the Holy Synod he governed the Tobolsk diocese temporarily in May and June 1912. By decree of the Holy Synod of 17 November 1914 he was appointed bishop of Izmail, second vicar of the Chișinău diocese; on 20 December he left for the new place of service. After the occupation of Bessarabia by Romania he was forced to leave for Russia. Near Kiev, at the railway station Vyatka, he was seized and, on 4 February 1918, killed by the Bolsheviks.