Leo Korobchuk

Saint Leo (Lev) Korobchuk, hieromartyr (1914 to 1944), was a priest of the Polish Orthodox Church, killed on 10 March 1944 in the church at Łasków near Hrubieszów by men of Polish underground formations. He is one of the eight holy martyrs of Chełm and Podlasie, canonized in 2003. Our record gives the years 1919 to 1944; the Ukrainian source, which is fuller, says he was born on 9 August 1914.

Family and formation

He came from a family of Ukrainians of the Chełm region. His father, Gavriil Korobchuk, was an archpriest. In the First World War the family fled the fighting and settled in the Yaroslavl province of Russia, where Lev was born. His father soon returned to his homeland and continued to serve in a parish. Lev studied in the secondary schools of Przemyśl and then Lviv. Under the influence of his devout father he resolved to give his life to the service of the Church, and in 1936 he entered the cantors' school at the Yablechna monastery. In 1939 he was sent as cantor to the parish of Verbkovichi in the Chełm region, where he met Vera Shchur, whom he married in October 1941.

In 1942 he was ordained deacon and a little later priest by Archbishop Hilarion of Chełm and Podlasie. He began with assignments in the diocesan administration, then was entrusted with the parish of the village of Łasków near Hrubieszów.

The war years and martyrdom

The region was occupied by the Germans and was also torn by bitter enmity between the local Ukrainians and Poles. Ukrainian peasants of the Hrubieszów district were attacked by bands called the Peasant Battalions, and the young Korobchuk couple's home suffered several times. The priest, though loyal to Ukrainian customs, had to hide his national signs when walking the village streets, which was prudence rather than demeaning fear. On 6 May 1943 Father Sergius Zakharchuk was killed by Poles, he too numbered among the martyrs of Chełm and Podlasie. Lev Korobchuk, together with five other Orthodox priests, organized, not fearing the censure of the Polish villagers, a procession to meet the funeral cortege.

On 10 March 1944 the church in which Father Lev was celebrating a memorial service with twenty of the faithful was surrounded by men of the underground formations. All who were in the church were killed with cruelty, and Father Lev's body was cut in two. The bodies were hastily buried on the spot, and the church and the houses of many people of Łasków were burned. After a few weeks the dead were reburied in the Łasków cemetery. His mother recognized her son's body only by his shoes. The exact place of the grave is not known.

Canonization

On 20 March 2003 the Holy Council of Bishops of the Polish Orthodox Church, meeting at Lublin, decided to number among the holy martyrs eight devoted servants of the Church, known as the martyrs of Chełm and Podlasie, among them Lev Korobchuk. The glorification took place on 7 to 8 June 2003 in the cathedral of Saint John the Theologian in Chełm, with hierarchs of the Polish Church and of many autocephalous Churches, more than a hundred clergy and nearly two thousand pilgrims. Of the Korobchuk family only his sister Nadia was present. For the martyrs of Chełm and Podlasie a troparion, kontakion and magnification, an icon and a hymn were composed. Their common day of commemoration is the first Sunday of June; the bishop may appoint a separate commemoration of each on the day of his death, that is, for Lev, 10 March.