Feodor Romanovsky

Priest Feodor Dorimedontovich Romanovsky (1879-1937) was a priest at Verkhnodniprovsk in the Yekaterinoslav region and was shot in 1937 together with the priests Vasily Vakhnin and Iosif Chekhranov. He was glorified locally as a hieromartyr in the Kamianske diocese (Ukrainian Orthodox Church) by decision of the Synod of 18 March 2020.

He was born on 13 April 1879 in the village of Gansk (now in Poland), Wlodawa district, Siedlce province, in a priest's family. He graduated from the theological school in Warsaw in 1893 and the Kholm seminary in 1899, was ordained priest and from 1907 was rector in Voskrenytsa, Siedlce province. In 1922 he was called to account in the case of the confiscation of church valuables and sentenced to a suspended year. Until 1931 he was a priest at Verkhnodniprovsk, then was left without a place of service. He held prayer meetings in his dwelling, often came to Pushkarivka to the priest Vasily Vakhnin, and served at home morning and evening, according to a neighbour.

On 19 September 1937 he was arrested on a charge of anti-⁠Soviet agitation, spreading provocative rumours and "distorting Soviet reality." The file attributes to him the words that the church would be rebuilt on the bones of the communists and of those who tore it down. On 16 November 1937 the troika sentenced him to death and he was shot on 19 November 1937 near Dnepropetrovsk, together with Vasily Vakhnin and Iosif Chekhranov, and buried in an unknown common grave.

On 2 December 1957 the regional prosecutor rejected his daughter's request to review his case and rehabilitate him, deeming his guilt fully proved. On 27 February 2018 the synodal canonization commission examined the cases of the three priests. The Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church numbered them among the locally venerated saints of the Kamianske diocese on 18 March 2020, approving the troparion, kontakion, prayer and icon.