Venerable Confessor Leontius Stasievich

Venerable Confessor Leontius, secular name Lev Fomich Stasevich, was born on March 20, 1884, in Tarnogród, Lublin province. In 1910 he entered the Yablochinsky St. Onuphrius Monastery; he was tonsured a monk in 1912, ordained hierodeacon, and then in 1913 hieromonk, and appointed monastery treasurer. Around 1915, during World War I, he transferred to the Epiphany Monastery in Moscow.

On November 26, 1922, Patriarch Tikhon appointed him superior of the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery in Suzdal; in 1924 he was elevated to archimandrite.

He was repeatedly arrested: on February 3, 1930, arrested in Suzdal (3 years in labor camps), on November 5, 1935, arrested again (3 more years), and finally, on May 2, 1950, arrested a third time (10 years, served at the Bratsk camp); released in 1955 after Stalin's death.

After his release he served at the Church of Archangel Michael in the village of Mikhailovskoe (Furmanov district, Ivanovo region) — a parish church, not a monastery, contrary to a common assumption. In 1964, at his parishioners' request, he returned there and served until his death. He died peacefully at home on February 9, 1972, at age 88, having received Holy Communion after celebrating his last liturgy on February 7.

He was canonized in the rank of venerable confessors by the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000.

His feast is kept on January 27/February 9.

IMPORTANT CORRECTIONS: category righteous→confessor (venerable confessor) — the stub's text erroneously called him a "hieromartyr," though the elder was not killed but died a natural death in 1972, decades after his last release; corrected to the proper category of "confessor" (repeatedly subjected to repression, but not martyrdom). CRITICAL: the feast_days field contained a contaminated date, "June 18/July 1," identical to (and equally wrong for) the leontius_of_rostov entry — replaced with the correct date of his own repose, January 27/February 9.