John Skadovsky

Saint John Skadovsky (1874-1937) the hieromartyr was a landowner of Kherson who became a priest, served in the time of persecution in the "catacomb" community, was exiled and was finally shot in 1937 at Turtkul in Karakalpakia, together with Archbishop Procopius (Titov). Killed, according to some sources, on 23 November 1937, he was glorified as a locally venerated saint by the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 1996 and numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, for veneration in the whole Church, by the Jubilee Council of August 2000. He is commemorated on 10 November (23 November in the new style).

The landowner of Kherson

He was born on 30 May 1874 at Kherson, in the family of the large landowner Georgy Lvovich Skadovsky, marshal of the nobility of the Kherson district. He graduated from the real school and the agricultural school and the higher courses of chemistry, wine-⁠making and viticulture. From 1906 to 1909 he was a zemstvo chief in the Kherson district, then retired and devoted himself to farming on his estate. At this time he came to know the future Archbishop Procopius (Titov). He served in the army in 1916-1917.

The priest and the catacomb Church

From 1918 he was a priest and served in the bishop's church in Kherson, in 1922-1925 in the city cathedral, and after its seizure by the Renovationists in the cemetery church, which he left in 1926 when a Renovationist cantor was taken into service without prior repentance. In 1926 he went to the Solovki camp and had a meeting with the imprisoned Archbishop of Kherson and Nikolaev, Procopius. In 1928 he went again, but was not allowed to see him.

He opposed the church-⁠political line of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) and refused to recognize the authority of the new head of the diocese, Bishop Anatoly (Grisyuk), appointed by Sergius. From 1927 he served in secret; at some of his night services there were up to 50-60 people, and his community in Kherson numbered about a hundred. The deacon Mikhail Zakharov served with him. He continued to regard Procopius as his bishop.

In January 1931 he was arrested in the case of the Kherson group of the Odessa "branch" of the True Orthodox Church. At interrogation he declared that he regarded Soviet power as "a God-⁠fighting power, a satanic power, sent to people for their sins", and that he was a monarchist. In 1931 he was sentenced to five years and sent to the Vishera camps, where he stayed until February 1933, when the sentence was changed to exile at Kamyshin in the Stalingrad region. On 2 October 1934 he was arrested with Archbishop Procopius (Titov). At interrogation he said that he was a supporter of the Russian monarchical order but not of the distortions of its idea that took place in practice: the subjection of the Church to the state, the chase of officials after personal welfare to the detriment of the welfare of the masses, the decline of the Russian national spirit. He declared that he was a Russian nationalist and supporter of theocracy and affirmed that "a true follower of the Orthodox Church cannot be loyal to Soviet power, cannot make compromises with it".

On 17 March 1935 the Special Board of the NKVD sentenced Archbishop Procopius and the priest John Skadovsky to five years of exile in Karakalpakia, at Turtkul, where they arrived on 7 May of the same year. In the house in which they lived a small church was arranged, where local Orthodox people came to confess and receive communion.

The last arrest and martyrdom

On 24 August 1937 Archbishop Procopius and the priest John Skadovsky were arrested on the charge of counter-⁠revolutionary monarchist agitation and organizing an illegal prayer house. They did not plead guilty. On 28 October the NKVD "troika" sentenced them to death by shooting, and then they were shot. The Ukrainian source gives the date 23 November 1937.

His family: his father, Georgy Lvovich, was killed in 1919; his wife, Ekaterina Vladimirovna, née Burachkova, of the nobility, helped repressed clergy much, accompanied Archbishop Procopius into exile in 1928, visited him in Siberia in 1929, was arrested, and later lived with her husband at Turtkul. They had a son, Vladimir, and daughters Ekaterina (who was implicated with her parents in the case of the True Orthodox Church) and Maria.