Vladimir Khrishchenovich

Holy Hieromartyr Vladimir Khrishchenovich was a priest in the village of Gorki, Minsk province, and was shot in 1933, after the sentence of 12 February.

He was born in 1876 in the village of Gezgaly in the Lida district, Vilna province, in the family of the peasant Ivan Khrishchenovich. In 1911 he graduated from the theological school of Slutsk and served as psalm-⁠reader at the church of Saint Nicholas in the village of Gorki, Bobruisk district. In 1930 Bishop Nicholas Shemetillo of Slutsk ordained him priest for the church of Saint Nicholas. Living at Gorki, he often went to the neighboring parish in the village of Yazyl, which had no priest, and served there at the church of the Transfiguration.

In 1932 he gave a sermon because of which he was arrested: he told the faithful that the Lord made man and can do with him what He wills, that they must obey God, believe in Him, go to church and pray, for the only salvation is the Lord. On 27 December 1932 he was arrested, together with the psalm-⁠reader, the church warden and several parishioners of the church at Yazyl. At the interrogation he said that, as a priest condemned to a life of poverty, he had shown dissatisfaction with the policy of the authorities, and that he served at Yazyl at the invitation of the faithful, the church being without a priest. He wrote to his family from prison: "Dear and precious wife and children, I hasten to congratulate you on the New Year. May God grant that you bear all the burdens and sorrows from evil people and the machinations of the devil, who has risen to destroy us. The Most High will not allow this and will help us bear the burdens of the cross. I ask you not to forget God, on whom all depends." His wife, Sophia, wrote to him in prison that all were well and asked him to tell her in detail what he was accused of.

On 12 February 1933 the priest Vladimir Khrishchenovich, the psalm-⁠reader, the church warden and a member of the parish council were sentenced to death, and the other parishioners to various terms of imprisonment. Soon after the sentence Father Vladimir and all those condemned with him were shot.

The saint is commemorated on 12 February and, in the new style, on 7 February (movable) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church and on 11 July (movable) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Belarus.