John Kononenko

Saint John Andreyevich Kononenko, martyr, was a church choir director in Kharkiv and received the martyr's death by shooting on 25 May 1938, during the Soviet persecution. He is venerated as a local saint of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and commemorated on 19 May.

He was born on 7 January 1880 in the village of Solokhi in the Kharkiv governorate. He lived in Kharkiv with his wife and three children. He was choir director at the Three Hierarchs church. In April 1938 he was arrested and sentenced to death. He was shot on 25 May 1938 in Kharkiv.

On 22 June 1993 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church decided on his local canonization in the Kharkiv diocese, in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Sloboda land. The service of glorification took place on 3 and 4 July 1993 in the Annunciation cathedral of Kharkiv, during the visit of Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and all Ukraine.

His canonization is local and not that of the whole Orthodox Church.