John Voronets

Holy Hieromartyr John Voronets, a protopresbyter, was born on 20 June 1864 in the family of a priest of the village of Kholopenichi, Borisov district. He finished the Minsk Theological Seminary and in 1888 was ordained priest. He served in the town of Smilovichi, Minsk province, at the church of Saint George, all his life.

In 1930, in his sermons, he spoke against the policy of robbing the peasants carried out by the authorities, and for this reason was arrested in April 1930. After the exile, served at Chernigov, he returned to Smilovichi and served again at the church of Saint George. He was often called to night interrogations at the NKVD, usually on the eve of some church feast. In 1935 the church in Smilovichi was closed, and the father began to serve in secret. When the all-⁠union census began, he urged people to register in the forms as believers, confessing thus Jesus Christ.

In July 1937 he was arrested. At the interrogations he named no one and did not admit guilt. Protopresbyter John Voronets was shot on the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord in 1937. The page gives the date of 19 August 1937. The Church commemorates him on 20 August, in the new style, on 11 July in the Synaxis of the Saints of Belarus, and on the movable day of the synaxis of the new martyrs.