Confessor
Venerable Confessor Heraclius of Issyk-Kul (Motyakh)
1863 — 1937
Also known as: Прп. Ираклий Иссык-Кульский, Ираклий Иссыккульский, Ираклий (Мотях), схимонах, Иосиф Мотях, Ириней (Мотях), Преподобноисповедник Ираклий
A schemamonk of the Holy Trinity Monastery at Issyk-Kul who survived the sack of the monastery in 1916 and the years of persecution, and died on the feast of the Ascension in 1937. His relics rest in the Resurrection Cathedral in Bishkek.
Heraclius, born Joseph Motyakh in 1863 into a Cossack family of the Chernigov province, was a monk of the Holy Trinity Monastery at Lake Issyk-Kul (now Kyrgyzstan). He was tonsured with the name Irenaeus in 1905 and served as bell-ringer and assistant steward. In August 1916, during the uprising in Semirechye, the monastery was looted and seven monks were killed; he survived and all his life repented that he had not shared their death.
After the monastery was closed in 1919 he lived as a hermit in the mountains near Verny (Almaty), took the great schema with the name Heraclius, and later stayed with pious families in Talgar and in the village of Sazanovka (now Ananyevo) by Issyk-Kul, praying almost without sleep and receiving people who came for counsel. His hosts were arrested during collectivisation.
He foretold that he would die on the feast of the Ascension and reposed on that day, 10 June 1937. He was glorified locally in 1993 and added to the Synaxis of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in 2000; his relics were found in 2004 and placed in the Resurrection Cathedral in Bishkek.