Laurence Levchenko

Holy Venerable Martyr Laurence Levchenko, a hieromonk, was born on 26 April 1893 in the village of Nikolaevskoe, Kurya volost, Zmeinogorsk district, Tomsk province, in the family of the peasants John Leontievich and Akilina Fedorovna Levchenko, and at Baptism received the name Stephen. Besides him the family had older daughters, Xenia, Euphrosyne and Maria.

In the mind of the Russian Orthodox peasant, any earthly labour, any service to family and farm was in the end to be crowned by a special struggle in the field of saving the soul and praying for neighbours, for living and departed kin, by a labour and a life devoted solely to the Lord Jesus Christ. And where was the best place for salvation, if not a monastery? In 1891 Stephen's sister Xenia entered the Shamordino monastery in the Kaluga province, later tonsured with the name Eugenia; four years later his sister Euphrosyne came to Shamordino, tonsured with the name Anatolia, and in 1909 his sister Maria. In 1910 his parents also entered monasteries: his mother to her daughters, at Shamordino, his father at Optina; the mother was tonsured with the name Akilina, and the father received the schema with the name John (he reposed in 1929 and was buried beside the Protection of the Mother of God church in Kozelsk). With his father the seventeen-⁠year-⁠old Stephen entered the monastery.

At Optina Stephen was tonsured a monk with the name Laurence, ordained hierodeacon and raised to the rank of archdeacon. After the unbelievers closed Optina, in 1923, the archdeacon Laurence settled in Kozelsk in a small house where his father, mother and sisters, all monastics, gathered, joined by some of the Optina brethren, and a small community came to be. They supported themselves by a workshop for felt boots set up in their house; the boots they made were famed for the soundness and quality of their work and were always in demand. When services ceased in the Kazan church of Optina, the monks moved to serve at the church of Saint George in Kozelsk, where the hieromonk Macarius (Chilikin) was rector, and there the archdeacon Laurence also served. They served somewhat shortened, so as not to weary laity unused to long services, but the service and singing were still Optina's, and Russian Orthodox people began to flow there, who had always valued the monastic service as the most prayerful. On great feasts the superior of Optina, Archimandrite Isaac (Bobrakov), came to serve at the church of Saint George, with the monks living in nearby villages, and on those days they sang on two choirs.

Later the parishioners of the church in the village of Ivanovskoe, not far from Kozelsk, asked Archbishop Silvester (Bratanovsky) of Kaluga to ordain their beloved devout archdeacon hieromonk, and the archbishop granted their request. To Ivanovskoe the nuns, his sisters, moved to him, helping at the church and supporting themselves by handwork. The hieromonk Laurence went round the villages, talked with the peasants and, being a skilled craftsman, was often called to repair the threshing machines of the collective farm: the machines had been given to the farm but the mechanics had not yet been trained.

In 1935 NKVD officers began to gather information on Father Laurence with a view to arrest. For this purpose informers were assigned to hold conversations with him in order to obtain facts to charge him with counter-⁠revolutionary activity. From an informer's talk with some believers it emerged that the hieromonk Laurence enjoyed great authority among the Orthodox. When he came to Kozelsk, "he goes round to all the monks and nuns and urges us to endure as Christ endured... when we talk with him, we are filled even without eating by his words", someone told the informer. From other believers the informer learned that the hieromonk Laurence behaved very prudently, quietly, and tried to be of use not only to the Orthodox community but also to the new collective farms, so that when something broke in the machinery, people went to him and he helped without refusing; but for the most part he kept silent, so as not to reveal his opinion.

In April 1936 officers of the Kozelsk NKVD department questioned several inhabitants of the parish of the village of Ivanovskoe, demanding compromising statements about the priest, in order, without revealing the informers' names, to obtain materials for his arrest and conviction. But the witnesses gave testimony so confused that the arrest of the hieromonk Laurence was put off. However, at the end of summer 1937 Stalin's order on mass arrests appeared, and then the interrogation records were brought out as proofs for charging the priest.

In the first days of September a neighbour told Father Laurence that the priest of the neighbouring parish had been arrested, and Father Laurence began to gather with his sister the things he might need in prison. He was arrested on 6 September 1937 and put in the preliminary detention cell of the Kozelsk militia. On the same day the head of the district NKVD department questioned him. He was told that he had celebrated services in the collective farms of the district, taken money and products from the collective farmers, and collected signatures without permission of the village soviet, the district executive committee and the collective farm. He answered that he had served in the collective farms of the villages Lavrovo, Ivanovskoe, Staroselye, Novoselye, Zarechye, Tolstoe and the settlement of Alpatovskoe, that he had been paid in money and bread for services, but had not collected signatures. He was asked also whether he had urged the collective farmer Euphrosyne Volkova to go to church with her children and had agitated against the school; he answered that she had not gone to church since 1932 and that he had not agitated against the school. He was further accused of counter-⁠revolutionary agitation against Soviet power in the field, among women collective farmers, at the "Mirovoi Oktyabr" farm: he answered that he had been at the farm but had not agitated, and did not admit guilt. He was also asked why in 1937, without the knowledge of the village soviet and the collective farm, he had gone at night round the courtyards of the collective farmers and collected signatures: he answered that he had not gone about idly but at the request of the collective farmers, sometimes in the evening, to celebrate needed services in houses, and that he had not collected signatures.

On 22 September 1937 the head of the Kozelsk NKVD department drew up the indictment and sent it to the troika, adding on his own that the case of the hieromonk Laurence should be judged under the first category, that is, that he should be sentenced to death. On 5-6 October 1937 the session of the NKVD troika took place and sentenced him to death. The hieromonk Laurence (Levchenko) was shot on 25 October 1937 and buried in an unknown mass grave. Tradition has kept the memory of the venerable martyr's appearance: Father Laurence was tall, with long black hair and a large thick black beard.

Saint Laurence is commemorated on 25 October, the day of his death, on 24 October, with the Synaxis of All the Saints who shone forth at Optina, on 31 July, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Kaluga, and on 7 February, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, in the new style.