Eugene Ivashko

Holy Hieromartyr Eugene Ivashko, a priest, was born on 26 August 1899 in the family of the priest Alexander Ivashko of the Minsk diocese and received martyrdom by shooting on 11 November 1937. The Russian Church honours him among the New Martyrs and Confessors.

In 1920 he graduated from the eight classes of the Minsk seminary. Between 1 August 1920 and 20 January 1923 he was a teacher in a school of the Minsk province. In August 1922 he passed the examinations before the Minsk diocesan commission needed for the priesthood. On 1 April 1924 Metropolitan Melchizedek of Minsk ordained him priest for the church in Pavlovichi, Bobruisk district.

In 1926 Bishop Philaret of Bobruisk moved him to the church in Loshnitsa, Borisov district, and in 1927 to the church in Yurevichi, Igumen district. In 1927 the authorities arrested him and sentenced him to three years of exile. In 1930 Bishop Sergius Nikolsky of Buzuluk, vicar of the Samara diocese, appointed him to the village of Pogromnoe in the Buzuluk district. At that time the authorities sought by every means to close and destroy churches; Father Eugene had scarcely begun to serve when the church was closed.

Archbishop Alexander Trapitsyn of Samara appointed him to the church in the village of Medvetskoe in the same district. On 19 February 1931 his wife, Antonina, died, and Father Eugene was left with two children: a five-⁠year-⁠old daughter and a son one year and eleven months old. His mother's sister, Maria Adamovna Zhukovskaya, helped him raise the children.

In 1932 Bishop Nikon Purlevsky of Rzhev sent him to the village of Voskresenskoe in the Rzhev district. In the same year Bishop Macarius Zvezdov of Murom appointed him to the Dormition church in Murom. He zealously opposed the closing of churches and the Renovationist schism. In 1937 he was arrested, accused of counter-⁠revolutionary activity; he did not admit guilt, was sentenced to death and executed on 11 November 1937.

He is commemorated on 11 November, on 18 July in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tver, and on 7 February in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church (new style).