Innocent Letyaev

Saint Innocent (in the world Prokopy Alekseevich Letyaev, 1882-1937), hieromartyr, was Archbishop of Kharkiv and Akhtyrka. After years of constant transfers from one diocese to another, persecution and exile, he was condemned to death in a Siberian camp and shot on 14 December 1937. In Ukraine he has been venerated as a local saint of the Kharkiv diocese since 1993.

Youth and early ministry

He was born on 7 June 1882 at Biysk in the Altai, into the family of an Orthodox priest. In 1907, while studying at the Kazan Theological Academy, he was tonsured a monk and ordained hierodeacon, and in 1909, at the end of his studies, hieromonk. He graduated as a candidate of theology with a work on a Kalmyk-⁠Russian theological dictionary. He taught at the church teachers' seminary in Irkutsk, in 1911 became inspector of the Irkutsk church school, and from 1913 was head of the seminary and abbot of the Prince Vladimir Monastery, with the rank of archimandrite. From 1914 he headed the church teachers' school in Poltava and the church of Saint Sampson on the field of the battle of Poltava.

Episcopate

On 7 November 1921 he was consecrated Bishop of Klin, vicar of the Moscow diocese. In May 1922 Patriarch Tikhon, under house arrest, entrusted him with the affairs of the Moscow diocese. For a time he recognized the leadership of the Renovationist Church, and in June 1923 he repented and was received into communion with the Moscow Patriarchate in his rank of bishop. He was successively Bishop of the Black Sea, of Stavropol (1923), of Kuban, of Rostov, vicar of the Yaroslavl diocese (1927), of Podolsk, vicar of Moscow (1927), of Vladimir (1932), and from 5 February 1935 Archbishop of Kharkiv.

In Stavropol, where he stayed only eleven days, he found nearly empty churches, because after Bishop Gervasius left, a division had arisen between pastors and flock: most of the faithful were for the Patriarch, while the clergy had passed to the Renovationist Synod. After his arrival the local clergy came openly over to the Orthodox side, and the triumph of Orthodoxy was celebrated on the eve of Christmas. He then left the city and presented himself to the GPU, which found nothing criminal. In 1926 he lived in exile at Belgorod.

Martyrdom

He was arrested on 20 July 1936 and on 27 December 1936 was sentenced to five years in camp. In the Siblag camp, investigators in Novosibirsk fabricated a case of White conspiracy on the basis of his contacts with Metropolitan Methodius of Harbin, who was in emigration. On 8 December 1937 the NKVD troika of the Novosibirsk region sentenced him to death, and the sentence was carried out on 14 December 1937. The place of his death and burial is unknown. He was rehabilitated in 1958.

Veneration

On 22 June 1993, by decision of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, he was glorified as a locally venerated saint of the Kharkiv diocese. He is commemorated on 19 May (1 June).