Gennady Rebeza

Venerable martyr Gennady (born Grigory Matveevich Rebeza, 1872 to 2 December 1937) was an archimandrite, abbot of the Bizyukov men's monastery in the diocese of Kherson, spiritual father of Metropolitan Anatoly (Grisyuk) of Odessa, shot in Kazakhstan in 1937. He was numbered among the saints by a decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 28 December 1999, under his lay name Grigory; since 2000 he is venerated under his monastic name Gennady. In August 2000 the Council of Bishops numbered him among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia, from the diocese of Alma-⁠Ata. He is commemorated in several local synaxes.

Life

He was born in the village of Yankuliv, in the Podolia province, into a peasant family, and few details survive. The date of his monastic tonsure is not known; from questionnaires, he served as "minister of religion from 1895" and was an unmarried monk by nature. In 1906 he struggled at the Glinsk Hermitage, in 1907 at the monastery of Saint Nicholas at Dobrusha, in the diocese of Chișinău, and was steward of the bishop's house at Chișinău, also taking part in the bishop's services. In the First World War he accompanied trains from Chișinău to the General Headquarters at Baranovichi, where he served. He was raised to archimandrite before the revolution of 1917. In 1919 he moved to Odessa, where he served under Metropolitan Plato (Rozhdestvensky) at the church of Saint Demetrius of Rostov at the Second Christian Cemetery. He was abbot of the Bizyukov monastery and in 1920, when Metropolitan Plato proposed that he go with him to Constantinople and then to America, Father Gennady decided to stay. He was appointed to the church of the Ascension. He performed secret monastic tonsures and was spiritual father of Metropolitan Anatoly (Grisyuk) of Odessa and Kherson.

Arrests and martyrdom

In July 1927 he was arrested and released after three months, without charges. In 1932, in the matter of the surrender of valuables, he was imprisoned for two months and tortured. On 9 December 1936 he was arrested on the charge of "counter-⁠revolutionary agitation" and of "ties" with the True Orthodox Church. On 13 June 1937 a special council of the people's commissar of internal affairs sentenced him to five years of exile in Kazakhstan, where he lived in the settlement of Maiskoe. On 25 November 1937 he was arrested again, accused of "counter-⁠revolutionary activity in exile"; he did not admit guilt. On 1 December 1937 a special troika sentenced him to death, and on 2 December, at two at night, he was shot and buried in an unknown common grave. He was rehabilitated on 17 May 1956.

Glorification

The source places the glorification at the decision of the Synod of 28 December 1999 and the numbering among the new martyrs and confessors at the Council of Bishops of 13 August 2000. The Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church then included him in several local synaxes: of the Saints of Odessa (2006, third Sunday after Pentecost), of the Saints of Poltava (2011, 12 October New Style), of the Saints of Kherson (2014, 5 September New Style) and of the Saints of Vinnytsia (2015, 14 September New Style).