The 104 Martyrs of Cherkassk

The 104 Martyrs of Cherkassk were priests, monks and ordinary believers of the Cherkasy region in Ukraine, put to death for their faith in 1937 and 1938, during the great Soviet persecutions. The Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine numbered them among the saints on 26 May 1998, with the blessing of Archbishop Sophronius of Cherkasy and Kaniv. They are commemorated on 26 May.

In the twenties and thirties many priests were sent into exile from the large cities. After serving their sentences they were not allowed to return home, and Cherkasy, Uman and Zvenyhorodka became places where servants of the Church gathered, among them monks driven out of the Kyiv Caves Lavra and from monasteries and sketes. The census of January 1937 showed that two thirds of the population, especially in the villages, were believers, and at Pascha of that year people filled the churches. The authorities answered with an order issued on 30 July 1937, which called for mass repressions within four months.

Historians who studied the case files describe trials conducted in haste by judicial "troikas". Death sentences were passed on people who had not yet been arrested, and some were arrested near Christmas and shot a week later. Others, condemned to years in the camps, vanished without trace. In 1938 the persecution went on. The 104 saints were clergy and laity who confessed Christ by their death in those two years.

In the village of Khutory, on the edge of Cherkasy, the building of a church in honour of the New Martyrs of Cherkassk began in 1998, the first one dedicated to them. Until then the parish serves in an adapted building, consecrated by Archbishop Sophronius in honour of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, the same dedication the lower chapel of the new church will bear. At Khutory the names of the new martyrs of every parish of the region are commemorated at each Liturgy. At that time the canonization of thirty-⁠five more new martyrs of the region was being prepared.