Elias

Elias (in the world Ilya Yakovlevich Ganzha) was a schemamonk of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, born in 1837 at Makiivka and died there on 17 April 1936. The Orthodox Church honours him as a saint.

Nothing is known about his life as a layman, or about how he received monasticism or entered a monastery. He was a monk, a lay brother without any ordination. For many years he lived in the skete of the Holy Prophet Elias on Mount Athos and, probably at the start of the twentieth century, moved to the Kyiv Caves Lavra in Kyiv. He left the lavra during the persecution of monks by the local Soviet authorities, in 1927. In that year he settled in the village of Kalinovo, near Makiivka, and in 1936, after the closing of the local church of the Holy Trinity, moved to his native town. He lived with various Orthodox families. The schemamonk enjoyed great authority among the Orthodox of Makiivka. He regularly received the faithful who came to him with requests for spiritual counsel and prayers. Among those who came were priests from Moscow and Kyiv. The gift of clairvoyance, of announcing things to come, was ascribed to him.

The Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church decided on Elias's canonization on 8 May 2012. On 28 May of the same year his remains were exhumed in order to obtain relics for veneration. The day of his commemoration was fixed as the anniversary of his repose. The solemn rite of canonization of the monk (as a locally venerated saint) took place on 23 September 2012 in the church of Saint George at Makiivka and was led by Metropolitan Agathangelos of Odessa and Izmail.