Feodor Statkevych

Priest Feodor Ivanovich Statkevych (1862-1919) was a parish priest in the village of Bohoyavlensk, in the Oleksandriia district, and was killed in 1919. He was glorified locally as a hieromartyr in the Oleksandriia diocese (Ukrainian Orthodox Church) by decision of the Synod of 9 December 2020; he is commemorated on 7 February (20 February by the new calendar).

He was born in 1862 in a devout family and dreamed from childhood of serving God. After the Odesa seminary he was a reader, then a deacon. In 1888 he was appointed second priest in the village of Ivankivtsi, in the Oleksandriia district. He then served at Pavlysh and, until the end of his life, in Bohoyavlensk, where he also cared for the neighbouring villages and was a teacher of religion at two zemstvo schools. He had a large family of ten children, who tried to follow their parents in a God-⁠pleasing life, in love of prayer and of the church. For the parishioners the priest's family was a good example.

Feodor was uncompromising on matters of church discipline: he never taught what he did not do himself, performed his duties with great conscientiousness, and therefore enjoyed great authority. After the revolution of 1917 he went on serving and fulfilling his priestly duty, without betraying Christ for the sake of the new power.

On 20 February 1919 he was preparing to go to the funeral of a parishioner. He was warned not to appear, because a reckoning was being prepared against him, but the priest entrusted himself to the will of God and went where his presence was needed. They did not let him finish the service: the lawless men dealt him a mortal blow and left him to bleed on the road. He died that same day. The Synod blessed his local glorification on 9 December 2020.