Sylvester Olshevsky

Saint Sylvester Olshevsky was a missionary, preacher and church educator in Ukraine, then Bishop of Omsk and Pavlodar and, from 1918, archbishop. Born in 1860 in Kiev province, he reposed in Omsk in 1920, during the years of the civil war. In 2000 the Russian Church numbered him among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, and since 2018, after study of the documents about his death, it has venerated him as a hieroconfessor.

Family and education

His name in the world was Justin Lvovich Olshevsky. He was born on 15 June 1860 in the village of Kosovka, in the Skvira district of Kiev province, into the family of the deacon Lev Olshevsky.

He graduated from the Kiev-⁠Podol theological school, from the Kiev Theological Seminary in 1883 and from the Kiev Theological Academy in 1887 as a candidate of theology. From 1885 to 1889 he was house reader to the rector of the Academy, Archimandrite Sylvester (Malevansky), whose sight was poor, and helped him write the first two volumes of his five-⁠volume Dogmatic Theology.

From 27 October 1887 he taught at the parish school in the village of Lipovka, and from 15 January 1888 he taught religion at the two-⁠class school in the town of Shpola, where the Stundist groups had strong influence.

Missionary and educator in Poltava

From 7 March 1889 he was a diocesan missionary in Kiev and a teacher at the parish school of the Saint Vladimir Brotherhood. From 1890 he was diocesan missionary in Poltava and taught history, and from 1894 pastoral theology, liturgics and homiletics, at the Poltava seminary.

For two decades he devoted himself to mission work. He strongly opposed the spread of Baptist and Stundist teachings in Ukraine and wrote a book refuting Stundism from biblical texts, which became a handbook for missionaries and priests. He regarded the sectarians as opponents of the Church, of the state and of the whole Slavic world.

On 2 February 1892 he was ordained a celibate priest and attached to the clergy of the Poltava cathedral. From 1892 to 1896 he directed the Sunday school for women in Poltava and taught religion there. From 1896 he was diocesan inspector of church schools and a member of the council of the Saint Macarius Brotherhood and of the diocesan school council, and on 12 May 1902 he was raised to archpriest.

By 1910 he was chairman of the Poltava missionary council and had taken part in three all-⁠Russian and two regional missionary congresses. For many years he had in fact lived as a monk in a modest cell in a monastery guesthouse. On 10 December 1910 he was tonsured with the name Sylvester and raised to the rank of archimandrite.

Bishop at Priluki, Chelyabinsk and Omsk

On 16 January 1911 he became Bishop of Priluki, vicar of the diocese of Poltava. He organized theological readings for the educated public and spoke at them himself. On his initiative a Brotherhood of religion teachers and educators in memory of Father John of Kronstadt was founded, and the Patericon of Pereyaslav and Poltava was published.

When he marked fifteen years of work for the church schools, the clergy thanked him for carrying the call to common labour through the towns and villages of the diocese, even to its remotest corners, and for laying the foundations of the network of schools that had so quickly covered the diocese of Poltava. In 1911 the diocesan assembly established two scholarships in the name of Archpriest Justin Olshevsky at the diocesan girls' schools of Poltava and Lubny.

On 13 November 1914 he became Bishop of Chelyabinsk, first vicar of the diocese of Orenburg, and on 4 June 1915 Bishop of Omsk and Pavlodar.

In 1917 he was a member of the Local Council of the Russian Church and took part in its first session, serving on the judicial commission of the bishops' conference and in several departments.

Confession in Omsk

After the Bolshevik decree separating Church and state, he led a procession with the cross in Omsk on 4 February 1918, calling on the people to keep the Orthodox faith and defend the churches from the godless. On the night of 5 to 6 February he was arrested by the Bolsheviks, and his steward, Nicholas Tsikura, was killed during the arrest.

The faithful were outraged. Offices, shops and schools closed, and Red Guards dispersed people in the streets. The authorities declared a state of siege, but on 8 February they were forced to release the bishop. On 5 May 1918 Patriarch Tikhon raised him to the rank of archbishop.

The civil war years

In November 1918 he was elected head of the Provisional Higher Church Administration of Siberia. During this time the decree separating Church and state was revoked in Siberia: the Church recovered its lands and property, religious instruction returned to the schools, and five seminaries and five theological schools reopened.

On 29 January 1919 he administered the oath to Admiral Alexander Kolchak as Supreme Ruler of Russia, and in March he led a procession attended by Kolchak and members of the government. He restored the institution of military chaplains, blessed the congress of the Cossack hosts in August 1919, and supported the volunteer brotherhoods of the Holy Cross, whose soldiers he blessed before they left for the front. The church administration he headed issued appeals explaining the anti-⁠Christian nature of Bolshevism, and the journals For Holy Russia and the Siberian Herald were published in Omsk.

His repose

When the White army abandoned Omsk, Archbishop Sylvester stayed with his diocese. Two accounts of his end have come down.

The Life based on the publications of Ivan Shikhatov states that he was arrested by the Bolsheviks at the end of 1919, held in prison for two months and cruelly tortured, and then put to death by torture on 26 February 1920. His glorification as a hieromartyr rested on this account.

Documents found by M. F. Panina of the Historical Archive of the Omsk Region tell a different story. After the Reds arrived the archbishop was arrested, but at the demand of the townspeople he was released that same evening and expelled from the bishop's residence. He then lived with the priest Fyodor Chemagin and reposed on 10 March 1920 of intestinal cancer, as recorded in the city's civil death register and in a letter by M. A. Stolpovsky. No document has been found confirming a prolonged imprisonment.

His funeral was served by Archbishop Benjamin (Muratovsky), who was himself under arrest by the Cheka and was released temporarily for the purpose. Archbishop Sylvester was buried in the crypt of the cathedral.

Relics and veneration

In 1981 the Russian Church Outside of Russia glorified the new martyrs of Russia, and Archbishop Sylvester was counted among them. In 1998 he was glorified as a locally venerated saint of the diocese of Omsk, and in August 2000 the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church numbered him among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, together with his steward Nicholas Tsikura.

On 16 July 2005 his relics were found in the chapel of Saint Nicholas in the foundations of the Dormition Cathedral of Omsk, which had been demolished in the 1930s. Metropolitan Theodosius (Protsyuk) of Omsk recalled that it had been believed the archbishop was buried in a common grave, but it turned out that devout people had secretly buried him in the cathedral, vested as a bishop.

During the excavation a small icon floated up, inscribed as a gift to Bishop Sylvester from admirers of his gifts in July 1914. The coffin held the paraman, the episcopal belt, a cross and a metal rod, and the feet were wrapped in the episcopal eagle rug. Three scientific examinations confirmed the authenticity of the relics.

By the blessing of Patriarch Kirill of 18 May 2018, following the clarified findings of the Synodal Commission for Canonization, Archbishop Sylvester is now styled a hieroconfessor, and his commemoration has been moved from 26 February to 10 March (9 March in leap years).

He left many writings: sermons, homilies for Great Friday, works against the sects, religious education programmes for schools, Russian Saints from Among the Laity, The Paths of Salvation, and pages on Saint John of Kronstadt. Since 2009 a street in Omsk has borne his name, and his relics are venerated by the faithful of the city.