Myron Rzhepik

Holy Hieromartyr Myron Rzhepik, an archpriest, was born on 21 April 1885 in the village of Kuchkarovka, Lutsk district of Volhynia province, to a pious Czech Catholic family, John and Maria Rzhepik. On 2 May 1885 he was baptized in the Roman Catholic cathedral of Lutsk with the name Miroslav. In 1887 the whole Rzhepik family joined Orthodoxy, also at Lutsk, and Miroslav received the name Myron, after the holy hieromartyr Myron of Cyzicus, commemorated on 17/30 August. In 1900 he finished the clerical school at Klevan and entered the Volhynian theological seminary, which he completed in 1906 in the first category. Between 1906 and 1910 he was a student at the Moscow Theological Academy, which he finished with the degree of candidate of theology. On 7 September 1910 he was sent as teacher to the Taurida seminary. Married to Elizabeth Petrovna, he received the priesthood on 7 October 1912 and was sent as teacher of religion to the teachers' seminary at Lubny in Poltava province, and on 2 September 1915 he was moved to the theological seminary at Kashin in Tver province as teacher of Holy Scripture and acting inspector.

After the coup of October 1917 all theological institutions were abolished. From 1918 the Kashin seminary was reorganized into a school of the second stage, where Myron Ivanovich taught foreign languages and technical drawing. In April 1926 Father Myron moved to Sergiev (now Sergiev Posad) and was appointed rector of the Pyatnitskaya church, in place of the deceased Archpriest Evgeny Alexandrovich Vorontsov, and was soon raised to archpriest. After the closing of the Pyatnitskaya church in 1928 he passed to serve at the church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul (of the Resurrection).

On 5 April 1930 he was arrested in a group of sixty clergy and laity of the Moscow region and held at Butyrka. On 15 May 1931 he was charged that "he was a member of the Zagorsk branch of the counter-⁠revolutionary organization 'True Christians', took part in illegal meetings in the altar of the church and carried on monarchist anti-⁠Soviet agitation". On 20 May 1931 the OGPU troika of the Moscow region passed sentence, under articles 58-10 and 58-11, of ten years in a labour camp at Siblag. The six years of imprisonment, in which he worked at felling timber, as draftsman and as clerk, were immeasurably hard spiritually and physically. From 1934 Father Myron was at the separate camp point of Chistyunka in the Kemerovo region and lived in a barrack with Archbishop Juvenaly (Maslovsky) and about ten other clergy. Here he was found by the new wave of persecution of 1937, which spared not even those who already had long sentences.

On 2 August 1937 all the imprisoned clergy were searched. From Archpriest Myron were taken "an antimension with its cloth, a Gospel, a prayer book, a service book, a wooden cross, a perpetual calendar" (a paschalion). From 9 August men of the secret department of the NKVD began to summon the barrack elders for interrogation. False witnesses were found among criminals and those convicted of common offences, who said that the priests held services in the barrack in the evenings and opposed the cultural-⁠educational work in the camp. On 18 August 1937 Father Myron received a new charge, that in the camp he had systematically carried on "anti-⁠Soviet work and used religious prejudices among prisoners and free employees". At all the interrogations he held firm, with dignity, betrayed no one, denied guilt, though he admitted that he had served God in the camp too.

On 7 September, by the sentence of the NKVD troika of the West Siberian region, Archpriest Myron was condemned to the highest penalty and was shot on 13 September 1937 together with other priests, and buried in an unknown common grave of the West Siberian region. He was canonized on 6 October 2006 and added to the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. He is commemorated on 13 September, the day of his death, in the new style, with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church (a movable day), on 29 August with the Synaxis of the Saints of Kuzbass, on 5 September with the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, on 26 September with the Synaxis of the Saints of Altai, on 23 October with the Synaxis of the Saints of Volhynia and on 10 December with the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Radonezh.