Saint Leoncjusz

Leontius, secular name Lew Fomich Stasievich (born 20 March 1884 in Tarnogród, died 9 February 1972 in Mikhaylovskoye) was a clergyman of the Russian Orthodox Church, archimandrite, one of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Orthodox Church. He came from a peasant family in Tarnogród. At the age of 26, he entered the St. Onuphrius Monastery in Jabłeczna, where he also received diaconal and priestly ordinations. In 1915, along with other monks, he went into exile in Moscow. Between 1922 and 1923, he served as the superior of the Transfiguration of the Lord and St. Euthymius of Suzdal Monastery in Suzdal. He then served as a parson in Suzdal, Vorontsov, Mikhaylovskoye, Yelchovtsy, and again in Mikhaylovskoye. He was sentenced three times to labor camp under charges of counter-revolutionary agitation and organizing anti-Soviet associations, spending years in camps between 1930 and 1933, 1935 and 1938, and 1950 and 1955. In 1989, he was posthumously fully rehabilitated. Recognized during his lifetime as a starets, endowed with the gifts of healing and prophecy, he was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church with permission for local veneration in the Eparchy of Ivanovo and Voznesensk in 1999; in 2000, this veneration was permitted throughout the Moscow Patriarchate. Archimandrite Leontius is also venerated in the Polish Orthodox Church; the main center of his veneration in Poland is Tarnogród. He was the only son of Katarzyna and Tomasz Stasievich, deeply religious Orthodox peasant parents living in Tarnogród. His uncle Adam was an Orthodox clergyman and held the rank of protoiereus. As the future clergyman recalled, during his childhood, pilgrims often stayed overnight at their home, telling him about the shrines they visited and the saints honored there. According to Jarosław Charkiewicz, he received his basic education at the local school, and then attended a four-year gymnasium. Another source states that he only studied at a parish school.