Leontius Strotsyuk

Holy Hieromartyr Leontius Strotsyuk, a deacon, was born in January 1878 in the village of Sagryn, Hrubieszow district, Lublin province, in a Ukrainian family, that of the psalm-⁠reader Joseph Strotsyuk. In 1904 he was appointed psalm-⁠reader at the Holy Trinity church in his native village, and in 1907 was ordained deacon for the same church. In 1918 he was transferred to the Moscow diocese and assigned to the Kazan church in the village of Kolomenskoe, Moscow district. In 1921 he received as an award the double orarion.

On 25 November 1937 the village soviet of Sadovniki gave, at the request of the NKVD, a note in which it was written that the deacon Leontius "is the organiser of all the believers of the village soviet and we consider, for our part, that he is not a Soviet man and by his agitation hinders carrying out all the campaigns in the village". On 25 and 26 November the investigators questioned witnesses, who signed the statements required. On 1 December the authorities arrested the dean, the archpriest Valentine Kostrov, the retired priest Peter Uspensky and the deacon Leontius Strotsyuk, and put them in the Taganka prison in Moscow. The day after the arrest Father Leontius was questioned. Asked when and for what he had been brought to account, he answered that he never had. Asked how he got on with the inhabitants of Kolomenskoe and Sadovniki, he answered that relations were normal, without quarrels or personal scores. He was accused of having carried on active counter-⁠revolutionary activity together with Kostrov and Uspensky, and he said he had carried on no anti-⁠Soviet activity. Even when told he was exposed by the witnesses' testimony, he answered that personally he had carried on no anti-⁠Soviet agitation. When told that the investigation did not believe him, that he lied and gave no truthful testimony, he said that he gave truthful testimony. He did not admit guilt. With that the interrogations ended.

On 3 December the file was handed to the NKVD troika for judgment, which on 7 December 1937 sentenced the deacon Leontius Strotsyuk to ten years in a camp. He was sent by stages to Amurlag in the Amur region. On 8 April 1939 Father Leontius submitted a petition for review of his case, since he had committed no crime. As the examination dragged on, on 27 October 1939 he submitted another petition; by then he was already in the Malaya Nyukzha infirmary of the first section of Amurlag. The witnesses were questioned again and others were called; all confirmed that Father Leontius had spoken in defence of the Church, that he was dissatisfied with the closing of churches and the desecration of holy things. His petitions were left without result.

The deacon Leontius Strotsyuk died on 3 January 1941 in the Bamlag of the NKVD in the Amur region and was buried in an unknown grave. He is commemorated on 3 January, the day of his death, on 7 February, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, and on 5 September, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow (the date moves), in the new style.