Nikolay Trubin

Father Nicholas Trubin (31 May 1950 to 14 November 1997) was a priest of the diocese of Kirovohrad of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a man of prayer, first a wandering pilgrim, who died at Kirovohrad (today Kropyvnytskyi). Our sources show no canonization of him: he is remembered in prayer by the faithful, but is not numbered among the saints. Our record calls him "venerable", without a church decision that we can point to.

Beginnings

His parents were believers; his mother, Maria Danilovna Berezhnova, a pious woman, received travellers and brought up her son in the Orthodox tradition. He was born on 31 May 1950 in the town of Pomichna, Novoukrainka district, Kirovohrad region, where he spent his childhood. From early on he attended services, helped in the church of the village of Lyubomyrka and showed interest in church life; in spite of bodily difficulties he studied well, especially in mathematics and the humanities. In 1968 he entered the accounting and economics technical school in Kharkiv, finished in 1972; in the years of study he attended services much. After the technical school he worked as an accountant at the Kirov collective farm in Ustynivka until 1974. He desired, however, spiritual service, and in 1974 tried to enter the seminary at Leningrad, but did not pass the competition.

Wandering and priesthood

In the 1970s and 1980s he led the life of a wandering pilgrim, going about holy places and monasteries, without a settled home. He returned from time to time to Pomichna, and after his mother's death, in 1985, visited his parents' graves. On his wanderings he bore obediences in monasteries, among them the Pochaiv Lavra, the Trinity-⁠Sergius Lavra and the Pskov Caves Monastery, where he stayed longest, at Pechory. He was in touch with men of spiritual life and had a circle of followers around him. His way of life and his convictions often raised misunderstanding from relatives and those around. At the end of the 1980s, because of illness, he returned to Kirovohrad, where he settled for good in 1989. From 1989 he served at the church of the Protection as psalm reader and altar server. In 1990, with the blessing of Bishop Basil (Vasyltsev), he was ordained reader and subdeacon, then deacon (14 October), then priest (4 November). He served in parishes of the Kirovohrad and Mykolaiv regions, among others as rector in the village of Kamyana Krynytsia, and between 1991 and 1996 studied at the correspondence department of the seminary at Odessa. In 1991 he received the epigonation and skufia, in 1992 the golden pectoral cross for zealous service. In 1994 he was put off the staff, because of illness, with the right to serve by invitation.

Illness and death

In 1995 to 1997 he was gravely ill, several times in critical condition. In the autumn of 1997, after a pilgrimage to the Pochaiv Lavra, he took to his bed for good. He died on 14 November 1997 at Kirovohrad. The funeral was held on 17 November in the church of the Protection, with the clergy of the diocese, and he was buried in the Lelekivka cemetery of the town. After his death memorial services are held in churches, and his name is recalled at church and public gatherings. "The Life of Priest Nicholas Trubin" is a biographical and spiritual book, which has reached more than fifteen editions, between 2007 and 2020.