John of Vilnius

Holy Hieromartyr John of Vilnius, called Vilensky, a priest, in the world John Dimitrievich Vilensky, was born in 1857 in the village of Borisoglebskoe in the Yaroslavl province. After the Yaroslavl Theological Seminary he worked three years as a teacher at a zemstvo school, then was ordained priest. From 1882 until his martyric death in 1918 he served in the village of Trofimovskoe in the Poshekhonye district. He had seven children, of whom one became a priest in the same district.

At the beginning of November 1918 the Bolsheviks announced in the Poshekhonye district a mobilization of horses for the reserve of the military commissariat, during which the peasants beat the military instructor and a clerk. In response a detachment of the Cheka arrived, which carried out mass searches with confiscation of property and arrested about forty people. On 10 November, without trial or investigation, near the village of Semenovskoe, in a marsh, the Chekists mutilated and shot three of the arrested, among them the priest of Trofimovskoe, Father John. They accused him of having hidden counterrevolutionaries who had hidden after the White Guard uprising in Yaroslavl and of having kept valuables of the former factory owner Derunova, shot together with him. After the detachment left, the bodies of those shot were brought from the marsh to the cemetery and met with a procession.

The remains were found on 15-16 May 2018 in the Prechistoe deanery. According to the conclusion of a commission of experts, by a decree of Patriarch Kirill it was established that the remains are the relics of the hieromartyr. After a solemn welcome the relics rest in the cathedral of Rybinsk. The day of commemoration was set at 10 November, and the second day of commemoration is now held to be the day of the finding of the relics, 16 May. On the days of commemoration the Divine Liturgy is served in the Saviour's Transfiguration cathedral of Rybinsk.

The Church commemorates him on 10 November, the day of his death, in the new style, on 16 May, at the finding of the relics, on 5 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl, and on the movable day of the synaxis of the new martyrs.