Vladimir of Kyiv

Saint Vladimir, in the world Vasily Nikiforovich Bogoyavlensky, was Metropolitan of Moscow, then of Petrograd, and finally of Kyiv and Halych, killed in Kyiv in 1918, at the start of the Bolshevik persecution. He was the first hierarch killed as a new martyr under the Soviets. The Russian Church canonized him in 1992 and commemorates him on 25 January, by the old calendar, the day of his martyrdom.

He was born on 1 January 1848 in the village of Malomorshevka in Tambov province, to the priest Nikifor Bogoyavlensky. He graduated from the seminary in Tambov and from the Kyiv Theological Academy, in 1874, and taught homiletics, liturgics, pastoral theology and Holy Scripture at Tambov. He left teaching for pastoral service and in 1882 was ordained priest. After the death of his wife and son, in 1886, he was tonsured with the name Vladimir and named abbot of the Trinity Monastery at Kozlov. In 1888 he went to Saint Petersburg as vicar and was consecrated bishop. He was then sent to Samara, where, in the time of cholera and famine, he called the clergy and laity to help the needy, set up mutual aid committees and free meals for the hungry, and served even in the cholera wards and cemeteries. From 1892, for six years, he led the Georgian Exarchate, caring for the spiritual enlightenment of the multi-⁠ethnic Orthodox population of the Caucasus, opening churches and parish schools.

In 1898 he was called to Moscow as Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna, until 1912. In October 1905 he gave, and ordered read in all the churches of Moscow, an address to the people on how to conduct themselves in those troubled days. In 1912, after the death of Metropolitan Anthony, he was Metropolitan of Saint Petersburg and Ladoga and chairman of the Holy Synod, from 1912 to 1917, but he came to criticize Rasputin's influence on the Church and was moved, in December 1915, to Kyiv as Metropolitan of Kyiv and Halych. He was the only hierarch of the synodal era to hold in turn the three metropolitan sees of the empire, and was nominated in the election of the patriarch at the Local Council of 1917 to 1918.

Within months of the October Revolution, on 25 January 1918 (7 February by the civil calendar), when Muravyov's army swept through Ukraine, five Red soldiers arrested him. He was killed before the eyes of the monks near the Kyiv Caves Lavra, and his body was mutilated. The circumstances of his death are not fully clarified and are interpreted differently. He was canonized in 1992, and the day of his memory was proclaimed the day of remembrance of all the Russian new martyrs, on the Sunday nearest 7 February.