John Streltsov

Venerable confessor John Streltsov (born Tikhon Yakovlevich Streltsov, 1885 to 24 September 1970) was a hegumen of the Russian Orthodox Church, a monk of the Sviatohirsk Hermitage, who passed through the camps and died as a priest in the village of Pokrovske in the Donetsk region. He was canonized on 8 May 2008 by the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as a saint venerated only locally, in the diocese of Donetsk, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Sviatohirsk, and the glorification took place on 12 July 2008. He is commemorated on 11 September (Old Style).

Beginnings

He was born in the settlement of Peski-⁠Radkovskie, in the Kupiansk district, Kharkiv province (according to other data in the village of Korochev), into a peasant family, and was brought up by his uncle, Ignatius Andreevich Streltsov, elder of the district and later a member of the first State Duma. He finished the parish school and worked on his uncle's model farm. From childhood he was a novice at the Sviatohirsk Hermitage, from which in 1906 he was called up for military service, in the artillery of the fortress of Kars (1906 to 1910). After the military school in Tiflis he served on at Kars as a clerk and in 1910 returned to Sviatohirsk, studying in 1910 to 1914 at the hermitage's missionary school. In 1914 he was mobilized into the tsarist army, in 1918 he returned to the monastery, where he stayed about a year, and was then mobilized into the Red Army. In December 1919 he was appointed commandant of the monastery buildings, used as a hospital for wounded and typhus-⁠stricken Red soldiers.

In 1921 he was tonsured a monk by the abbot Archimandrite Tryphon, with the name John, after Saint John the Baptist. In 1922, after the monastery was closed and turned into a rest house, he worked temporarily as manager of the rest house, so as not to leave the place of his tonsure, and received a written word of thanks from the authorities. On 12 February 1924 he was ordained hierodeacon by Bishop Onuphrius (Gagalyuk), and on 24 October 1926 hieromonk by Bishop Macarius (Zvezdov), at Kharkiv. In 1926 to 1931 he led the Sviatohirsk Hermitage provisionally from the All Saints cemetery church and cared for the remaining brothers. In 1930 he received the pectoral cross from Archbishop Constantine (Dyakov) for the struggle against the renovationist schism and the sects.

Arrests and the camp

In 1931 he was arrested for two and a half months on the charge of non-⁠payment of taxes and hiding silver currency, and in 1932 for three months on the charge of forgery. In 1936 to 1937 he lived in his native village, serving in homes. On 8 October 1937 he was arrested and sentenced to ten years in a camp as a "supporter of the Tikhonite organization, with counter-⁠revolutionary activity, illegal meetings and services". He did not plead guilty. From August 1938 to 3 April 1943 he served his sentence in the Kargopol camp in the Arkhangelsk region, at timber felling, and sent six petitions for review, which went unanswered. He was released early on 3 April 1943.

On 16 May 1943, on his way home, at the Annunciation cathedral in Murom, at the request of Archpriest Benjamin and the parishioners, Archbishop Sergius (Grishin) appointed him rector of the church of the Dormition in the village of Kryukovo, Vladimir region, where the first testimonies of his miracles appeared. On 18 June 1949 he was arrested again and sentenced to eight years in a camp; he served at Abez, in the section for sick and elderly prisoners. In 1957, after release, he returned to the Donbas, where he received the Protection parish in the village of Karlovka, and in 1962 he was moved to the village of Pokrovske, where he served until his death. On 24 September 1970, though unwell, he served the Liturgy, and after the service confessed to the district spiritual father, Archpriest Nicholas Salata, who had arrived unexpectedly, and after the confession he died.

Canonization

On 8 May 2008 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church decided on the local canonization of the ascetic in the diocese of Donetsk, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Sviatohirsk. The glorification service was held on 12 July 2008 in the Dormition cathedral of the Sviatohirsk Lavra, at the visit of Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv.