Vladimir Vasilevsky

Saint Vladimir Vasilevsky, hieromartyr, also called Vladimir Slobodskoy, was a priest, born at Tashkent in 1892 and shot at Kharkiv on 11 January 1938. He is venerated as a local saint in the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, in the diocese of Kharkiv. His commemoration is on 19 May, in the Synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of the Sloboda land.

He was born on 6 January 1892 at Tashkent. The investigation file says of him: "Since 1921 a servant of a religious cult. Since 1924 a priest." At the time of his arrest, on 22 December 1937, he was serving in the village of Vvedenka, near the town of Chuhuiv in the Kharkiv region. The file mentions the pastor's family: his wife, Alexandra, and his son, Nikolai. Accused of subversive activity against the Soviet power, Father Vladimir was sentenced to death on 25 December. The sentence was carried out on 11 January 1938, at Kharkiv.

On 22 June 1993 the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine decided on his local canonization in the diocese of Kharkiv. The service of glorification took place during the visit to Kharkiv, on 3 and 4 July 1993, of the primate of the Church, Metropolitan Vladimir of Kyiv and all Ukraine, in the cathedral of the Annunciation.