Joannicius Rudnev

Saint Joannicius (in the world Ivan Maximovich Rudnev) was Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia from 1891 to 1900, a theologian and preacher who founded church journals. He was glorified in 2016 in the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and is venerated as a hierarch of Kiev. He is commemorated on 7 (20) June.

Youth and monastic life

He was born on 20 February 1826 (some sources say 1827) in the family of a poor parish reader in the village of Verkhnee Skvorchee, in the Novosil district of Tula province (today in the Oryol region). He studied at the church school and seminary in Tula, then at the Kiev Theological Academy, graduating in 1849. In the same year, on 11 October, he was tonsured a monk. He taught Holy Scripture at the academy, became a master of theology in 1851 and was raised to archimandrite in 1854.

Steps of service

In 1856 he was inspector of the Kiev Academy, in 1858 rector of the seminary and abbot of the Epiphany Brotherhood Monastery in Kiev, and in 1859 rector of the academy. From 1860 he headed the Theological Academy in Saint Petersburg. On 12 June 1861 he was consecrated Bishop of Vyborg, vicar of the Saint Petersburg diocese, while keeping the rectorship.

He then served as Bishop of Saratov and Tsaritsyn (1864), of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas (1873), became archbishop in 1877 and was Archbishop of Kartli and Kakheti and Exarch of Georgia (1877). From 1881 he sat in the Holy Synod, and from 27 June 1882 he was Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna. In May 1883 he led the service of the coronation of Tsar Alexander III and, in the same month, the consecration of the newly completed Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. For his native village he commissioned a church, which was consecrated in 1894 in his presence.

The Synod's Chief Procurator, Pobedonostsev, described him as morally blameless but reserved and not very sociable, a man who had not suited Moscow, and the Tsar approved his move to Kiev. On 17 November 1891 he became Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia. In 1895 he received the Order of Saint Andrew, and on 25 December 1898 he was named senior member of the Holy Synod, which was very unusual for a metropolitan of Kiev.

His work

In every diocese he served he founded homes for the widows and orphans of the clergy, diocesan candle workshops whose income supported seminaries and schools, schools for girls from clergy families, and boarding houses for pupils of church schools. He was a capable teacher and administrator and a respected preacher. He founded three theological periodicals: the Guide for Village Pastors, the Works of the Kiev Academy and the Missionary Review. He left sermons and addresses, among them Five Words on Repentance (1899) and a jubilee volume of speeches.

Repose and veneration

He reposed in the Lord on 7 June 1900 at the Goloseevo Hermitage near Kiev. The funeral was led on 11 June by Metropolitan Vladimir of Moscow, and he was buried in the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross at the Near Caves of the Kiev Caves Lavra, beside Metropolitan Arsenius.

On 20 July 2016 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church placed him among the locally venerated saints of the Kiev diocese. On 28 August 2016, on the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God, his glorification took place during the Divine Liturgy on the cathedral square of the Kiev Caves Lavra, together with Schemahieromonk Vassian the Blind.