Venerable Job (Kundrya) of Ugolka

Venerable Job was born on May 18, 1902, in the village of Iza near Khust, in Subcarpathian Rus' (then part of Austria-Hungary, later Czechoslovakia), to Georgy Kundrya and Anna Madyar. He completed 8 grades of village school and agricultural-economic courses (1920); served in the Czechoslovak army 1924-1925. In the 1920s he attempted to join St. Panteleimon's Monastery on Mount Athos but was rejected due to Greek citizenship restrictions on non-Greek monks. He completed theological courses at the Nikolaevsky Monastery in Iza (1928) and in 1930 helped found the Holy Trinity skete near Iza.

On December 22, 1938, he was tonsured a monk with the name Job by Archimandrite Alexiy (Kabalyuk) — a noted confessor and later locally venerated founder of Subcarpathian Orthodoxy. He was ordained hieromonk on April 7, 1946, elected hegumen, and elevated to archimandrite in 1947.

In 1940 he was arrested while attempting to cross the Soviet border (most likely seeking to reach Russia) and sentenced to 25 years of forced labor. He was imprisoned within the Gulag system — Vorkuta, Kolyma, Norilsk — before being conscripted in 1942 into the Czechoslovak army corps under Ludvík Svoboda, serving as an artilleryman during World War II.

After 1945 he served at various parishes and monasteries in Transcarpathia; from 1962 until his death he was hegumen (later archimandrite) of the Church of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki in the village of Malaya Ugolka, Tyachiv district, near the site of the historic Ugolsky Monastery.

He was widely known for the gifts of healing and clairvoyance; numerous miracles are attributed to his intercession both in life and after death.

He reposed on July 28, 1985 (at age 83) — notably, the feast day of Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir. He was buried in the churchyard at Malaya Ugolka.

He was canonized as a locally venerated saint of the Khust Diocese by decision of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on May 8, 2008; the glorification ceremony took place on September 18, 2008, in Malaya Ugolka.

NOTE ON COMMEMORATION DATES: sources diverge in dating. The primary feast day most consistently listed in calendar sources (azbyka.ru and others) is June 15/28; separately recorded are July 28/August 10 (day of death), September 5/18 (day of glorification), and October 9/22 (uncovering of relics) — the discrepancy may reflect a difference between the church-wide commemoration day and local dates used by the Khust Diocese.