New Hiero-Confessor Varsonofii (Yurchenko) passed away on this day in 1954. On August 1, I wrote about Archimandrite Nektarii (Chernobylʹ), who served as a father confessor in the ROCOR’s Mount of Olives monastery in the Holy Land for many years (and before that, he was a monk in Jordanville). Fr. Nektarii passed away in 2000. He was not a supporter of the union with the Moscow Patriarchate, and his close spiritual child Isaak Gindis, who recorded Fr. Nektarii’s reminiscences, stopped receiving communion in the ROCOR after 2007. Fr. Nektarii was a direct link between the ROCOR and the Catacomb Church in Russia. Archimandrite Varsonofii Yurchenko was Fr. Nektarii's spiritual father. Fr. Nektarii was born in 1905 in Oleksandriya in Kherson Province of the Russian Empire. Fr. Varsonofii was born in 1880 into a peasant family in the same province. He was tonsured a monk in the Kiev Caves Lavra. He was a person of unshakable faith. Fr. Varsonofii told Fr. Nektarii that he was arrested in 1918 and expected to be placed before a firing squad. When monks delivered the ransom requested by the Bolsheviks, Fr. Varsonofii felt sad as he had wished to be united with the Lord. He fought against Renovationist schematics in Ukraine. Fr. Varsonofii did not recognize the so-called declaration of loyalty to the authorities of the USSR issued by Metropolitan Sergii (Stragorodskii) on July 29, 1927. He joined Metropolitan St. Joseph of Petrograd, who ceased ecclesial communion with Metropolitan Sergii. Fr. Nektarii recalled Varsonofii's pastoral style as follows: “Fr. Varsonofii treated his spiritual children with great tenderness and condescension, but if necessary, he could impose strict penances and could excommunicate them for a whole year. And when it came to fulfilling Orthodox canons, he was unshakable.” Seemingly, Fr. Nektarii also adopted this style. Fr. Varsonofii was interned multiple times in a GULAG camp in Magadan Region. Fr. Nektarii was relieved to meet Fr. Varsonofii during his incarceration: “I know Father Varsonofii (Yurchenko) prayed regularly while in prison. During my first imprisonment in Oleksandriya, when Fr. Varsonofii was confined in the same prison, albeit in a different cell, while walking around the prison yard, I saw Father Varsonofii many times standing at the window of his cell in prayer. Despite the noise, obscene language, and heavy tobacco smoke, he prayed for hours, as if not noticing anything outside.” Later, they met again in a concentration camp in Sarvov Region. In 1942, Fr. Varsonofii was released from prison. He passed away in 1954. In 1945, Fr. Varsonofii, along with some other confessors of the faith, recognized Patriarch Alexis I, elected at the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. This information did reach Fr. Nekatrii, but he was not sure whether the same “Fr. Varsonofii who left for the Moscow Patriarchate” was his spiritual father. Otherwise, Fr. Varsonofii would not have been glorified by the ROCOR in 1981 as a venerable martyr in the synaxis of the new martyrs of Russia. In 2008, he was canonized as a venerable confessor by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Sources: Pravolsavnoe tserkovnoe soprotivlenie v SSSR: Biograficheskii spravochnik (1927-1988) [Orthodox Church Resistance in the USSR: Biographical Reference] M.V.Shkarovskii, D.P.Anashkin, (Moscow: Rospan, 2013). Varsonofii (Iurchenko). Drevo: Open Orthodox Encyclopedia. Archimandrit Nekatrii (Chernobyl’), Vospominania. Orthodox Donbass. |
