Jonah of Kyiv

Venerable Jonah of Kyiv, in the schema Peter, in the world Ivan Pavlovich Miroshnichenko, was an elder and wonderworker, the founder of the Holy Trinity "Jonah" monastery in Kyiv, where his relics lie. He was born in 1802 at Kryukov, in the Poltava province, and fell asleep in the night of 8 to 9 January 1902, at a hundred years of age, at Kyiv. Even in his lifetime he was honoured as an elder, and many people of Kyiv sought him as a spiritual father. His commemoration is on 9 January.

Childhood and apprenticeship

He was born to Pavel and Pelagia Miroshnichenko, small townspeople of the settlement of Kryukov, now the right-⁠bank part of Kremenchuk. The family was poor and his parents could not give him schooling. The only thing he learned was reading. But he had a keen mind and a strong memory, and from childhood he loved books, especially those for edification of the soul, which he read a great deal. Very devout from an early age, he often visited monasteries and began as a novice with Venerable Seraphim of Sarov. He stayed with the great elder eight years in obedience. Later Venerable Seraphim blessed him to go to the Beloberezhskaya hermitage in Bryansk, where, by the elder's will, he entered as a novice in 1836.

In 1843 he received monastic tonsure with the name Jonah, and in 1845 he was ordained hierodeacon. In 1851 Father Jonah was met by Metropolitan Philaret Amphiteatrov of Kyiv and, at his will and wish, in August of the same year he was transferred to the St Nicholas monastery in Kyiv. In 1858 he was ordained hieromonk, and two years later, in 1860, he was enrolled among the brethren of the Vydubychi monastery in Kyiv, set on a very picturesque edge of the city, called Zverynets. Already then Hieromonk Jonah was marked by spiritual experience and a devout life, and many people of Kyiv sought a chance to receive counsel and guidance from him and be his spiritual children. He settled on the hill of Zverynets, on the site of the future monastery, and built himself a cell and a small church dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity. He took under his spiritual guidance the monks Hilarion and Gabriel. Among his disciples in the 1880s was Vasily Tkachenko, who entered history as Vasily the Barefoot, a Russian wanderer and "mystic friend" of Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.

The apparitions of the Mother of God and the founding of the monastery

The old account says that after they settled on Zverynets the Mother of God appeared twice to the monks, with a command to make a monastery. On 1 March 1861, coming out on the porch of his cell, Father Jonah saw a light and fire on the hill. In fear he ran to save his monks. Drawing near, he noticed that the flames which had seized the brothers' hut did them no harm. The cell stood unharmed, and beside it, in a pillar of fire, he saw the Mother of God with a company of saints. She touched his head and told him she had come to visit the place chosen by her Son from of old. "My grace will remain here for ever. I will visit this place unceasingly and many will be saved here. Many will come to this monastery, and you are to receive them all, despising no one, for all are children of God." Then she became invisible, and on the snow remained the prints of her most pure feet. On 9 March 1862 the place above the Vydubychi tract was again lit by fire. The elder hurried from the Vydubychi monastery to save his monks from the fire and again saw, in the unburning pillar of fire, the Mother of God with the company of saints. She called him to obey God's will for the building of a monastery there, telling him that he was only "the rake, the axe", the tools chosen by the Lord for wonderful and holy works. Father Jonah was deeply shaken. After the monastery was arranged, a church was built on that spot in 1910, destroyed in 1934, and in 1996 the new inhabitants set up a memorial cross. The Russian source notes that after that night in 1861 Jonah became known throughout the Russian Empire.

From then on the elder cared for the founding of the monastery of the Holy Trinity. First he made a skete beside Vydubychi and built a two-⁠storey wooden house in which was a church of the Life-⁠Giving Trinity. Princess Catherine Vasilchikova, wife of the governor-⁠general of Kyiv and a spiritual daughter of the elder, gave the monastery her villa with 10,000 roubles for its arrangement. But opponents of the monastery resisted fiercely, so the princess, with the elder's support, had to ask Emperor Alexander II for the foundation, who, after being saved as if by a miracle from an assassination attempt, gave his consent. On 6 April 1866 an official telegram arrived from the tsar, establishing the new monastery (Father Jonah was named abbot).

From then on the venerable one laboured much for the building up of the monastery. In 1871 the stone church of the Holy Trinity, with two side chapels, was completed. On 28 November Metropolitan Arseny Moskvin of Kyiv consecrated the altar of the south chapel, dedicated to the icon of the Mother of God "Three-⁠Handed" (Tricheirousa), which Father Jonah revered greatly and kept in his cell, and which was then placed in the Trinity church, to the right of the choir. The icon became wonderworking while still with the saint. Later he pressed for a stone bell tower to be built, but in the spring of 1897 he fell gravely ill, and he and those near him thought the elder would die. Then a wonderful event took place, described by the saint himself: in the night of 23 April 1897, about four o'clock, as he lay in bed in the dark, someone bright came into his cell, came very close, blessed him with the sign of the cross and said: "The Lord grants you health, help, protection and His divine grace, that you may serve Him in His holy Church. Here is the cross which you raised and brought to completion. And here is another cross, begun by you; you laid only its foundation, and you must finish it with labour as careful as the first. When you finish the second cross, the Lord will call you to Himself. Arise, serve Him and work for Him." After recovering, gathering 100,000 roubles, he brought to completion the building of a great stone bell tower (the Ukrainian source is unfinished at this point).

Archimandrite and repose

By decision of the Holy Synod of 17 January 1886 Father Jonah was named abbot of the Mezhyhirya Transfiguration monastery, with elevation to the rank of archimandrite. He fell asleep in the night of 8 to 9 January 1902.

The relics

In the 1960s, when persecution of the Church renewed, the crypt of Schema-⁠Archimandrite Jonah was destroyed, vandals desecrated his relics and tore off his right hand and head. The brothers of the monastery, led by the abbot, reburied the venerable one at the Zverynets cemetery. His relics remained there 27 years. In 1993, on the eve of the venerable one's name day, that of the prophet Jonah, with the blessing of Metropolitan Volodymyr, the relics were found, brought to the monastery and placed in a new oak coffin in the old place, in the crypt. The cypress coffin in which the elder had been buried, which he had made for himself in life, stands in a special place in the church, and now his tonsure cross, paramand and vestments are kept in it.