Pelagia Gorlenko of Nizhyn

Righteous Pelagia Gorlenko (born Ivanenko, died 1855) was a noblewoman of the Nizhyn region, builder of the church of the Transfiguration in the village of Yablunivka. She was glorified locally in the Nizhyn diocese by decision of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of 21 December 2017; she is commemorated on 8 (21) October.

Pelagia Grigorievna was the daughter of Grigory Grigorievich Ivanenko and Anna Fyodorovna. Not earlier than 1788 she married Ivan Petrovich Gorlenko, a companion of the army, a great-⁠nephew of Saint Joasaph of Belgorod, who died in 1794. The couple had a son, Yegor (George). On 5 April 1810 George, then secretary to the governor, received permission to build a new church beyond his village of Yablunivka, and on 11 April 1811 the foundation stone of the church of the Transfiguration was laid.

After George's death, in accordance with his will, his mother took it upon herself to complete the work. Through her care the church was finished: she roofed its five domes with iron, set up large gilded balls with crosses, carried out the plastering inside and out, adorned the church with a well-⁠made iconostasis and table of preparation, and bought a large reliquary-⁠coffin in gilded silver mounting, with precious icons and other furnishings, to the value of ten thousand rubles. Bishop Anatoly Maximovich of Poltava consecrated the main altar on 3 October 1815, and Archpriest Mikhail Kudlaevsky of Pyriatyn consecrated the side chapel of Saint Michael on 11 April 1816.

After that Pelagia lived nearly forty years, giving much to good works, and passed to the Lord in 1855 (other sources say 1856). After the consecration of the new church she had moved her husband's remains from the old church into the family crypt, in the crypt of the Transfiguration church, where she too was buried.

In 1930 the church was closed by the atheist authorities and an engine was placed in it, whose oil seeped through the floor onto Pelagia's coffin. Some desecrators opened the crypt and mocked her body, tying it to a tractor and dragging it across fields, then tying it to a tree to frighten passersby at night. God-⁠fearing people put the body back in its place. In 1987 the villagers' faithful opened the crypt and put the body in a shrine, but the district authorities forbade the shrine to be displayed in the church. In 1992 the faithful raised the incorrupt relics from the crypt and placed them in the middle of the church, in a shrine, where they have since remained. Each year on 21 October, the day of Venerable Pelagia of the Mount of Olives, the relics were opened for veneration.

In the following years many testimonies were gathered of healings of those who touched the relics with faith. In 2011 documents with a petition for canonization were submitted, and on 21 December 2017 the Synod decided on her glorification as a saint venerated locally in the Nizhyn diocese. Her remains were declared holy relics.