Job Kundria

Venerable Job of Ugolka (in the world Ivan Georgievich Kundrya, 1902 to 1985) was an archimandrite and elder in Transcarpathia, a region of western Ukraine today. Born in a village near Khust, he passed through the Czechoslovak army, the Soviet camps and the front in the Second World War, then was abbot of the skete of the Holy Trinity at Gorodilovo and, after the skete's closing, a parish priest in villages of Transcarpathia, sought as a confessor and healer. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church numbered him among the locally venerated saints of the Khust diocese in 2008.

Youth

He was born on 18 May 1902 in the village of Iza, near Khust, in Transcarpathia, into a large family, of George Kundrya and Anna Madyar. In his native village he finished eight classes of the people's school, and in 1920 courses in farming. In 1924 to 1925 (Transcarpathia, from 1920, had become part of Czechoslovakia) he served in the Czechoslovak army, at Michalovce in Slovakia. After the army he walked twice to Athos, but the monastery of Saint Panteleimon did not receive him, since he lacked the proper papers.

In the village the monastery of Saint Nicholas for monks was already active. There in 1928 he finished pastoral and theological courses. In 1930 Ivan, his elder brother the hieromonk Panteleimon, Vasily Oros and others, selling their plots in Iza, bought land at Gorodilovo for a skete, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The monastery of Saint Panteleimon on Athos sent as a gift to the new foundation a particle of the relics of the Holy Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica. The first abbot was Archimandrite Alexis (Kabalyuk). On 22 December 1938 (by other sources, 22 January) he tonsured Ivan Kundrya a monk, with the name Job.

The camps and the war

In 1939, after Hungary's occupation of Subcarpathian Rus, Father Job decided to emigrate to Russia. In 1940 he was arrested by the Soviet authorities on a fabricated charge and sentenced as a spy to 25 years in camps. By the Ukrainian sources he served the sentence at Vorkuta, on the Kolyma and at Norilsk. In 1942 the prison term was replaced by being sent to the front. As a citizen of the Czechoslovak Republic he served in the Czechoslovak volunteer brigade of General Ludvík Svoboda, in the artillery. After the war he guarded the Czechoslovak embassy in Moscow for a time.

In 1945 he returned to his native monastery. On 16 November 1945 he was ordained hierodeacon, and on 7 April 1946 hieromonk. The brotherhood's assembly chose him abbot, and in 1947 he was raised to the rank of hegumen. In 1950 Archbishop Macarius (Oksiyuk) of Lviv, Ternopil and Mukachevo-⁠Uzhhorod entrusted him with the duty of confessor not only of the Gorodilovo skete but of the Mukachevo monastery, recently returned to the Orthodox.

The persecution of monasteries

Under Bishop Varlaam (Borisevich), a systematic attack on the rights of monasteries and sketes began in the diocese of Mukachevo-⁠Uzhhorod. Father Job opposed this policy and even signed a collective letter of complaint to Patriarch Alexy I of Moscow against Bishop Varlaam, asking that he be removed. After this the diocesan authorities removed him from the abbacy, and soon the skete was closed.

In 1958 and 1959 he struggled at the monastery of Saint Nicholas in the village of Iza, then at the Transfiguration monastery in the village of Terebla, in the Tyachiv district, where he was for a time abbot, but soon these too were closed. In the early 1960s he was rector in the village of Uhlya, Tyachiv district, then in the village of Monastyrets, Khust district. From 1962 until the end of his life he was rector of the church of Saint Demetrius of Thessalonica in the village of Mala Ugolka, Tyachiv district. In 1966 he was raised to archimandrite. He was also known as a healer.

Repose and rehabilitation

On 28 July 1985 Archimandrite Job fell asleep peacefully in the Lord. The funeral took place on 31 July, and the service was performed by Archimandrite Ephraim (Molnar). On 20 November 1991 the prosecutor A. Bondarenko lodged a protest with the Transcarpathian regional court, which stated that the rulings of the special council regarding Kundrya and others should be annulled for lack of any criminal act. By decision of the court of 6 February 1992 Father Job was rehabilitated posthumously.

Finding of the relics and glorification

On 22 October 2007 his grave was opened. Then a fragrance of myrrh and incense spread across the whole district. The monk's body was merely dried. The clothes, the vestment, an icon with an inscription and the Gospel were well preserved, and the wooden coffin was only slightly rotted. The relics found were given to the church of Saint Demetrius of Thessalonica in the village of Mala Ugolka. In March 2008 the canonization commission examined the materials on Archimandrite Job. On 8 May 2008, in the Kyiv Caves Lavra, under the chairmanship of Metropolitan Vladimir (Sabodan), the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church numbered Archimandrite Job among the locally venerated saints of the Khust diocese. The glorification service took place on 18 September 2008 in the village of Mala Ugolka. Venerable Job of Ugolka is commemorated on 15 (28) July, the day of his repose (some sources give June).