Hieromartyr Vladimir Metropolitan of Kiev

Early Life and Monastic Tonsure

Vasily Bogoyavlensky was born on January 1, 1848 in the Tambov Governorate of central Russia. He completed his theological studies at the Tambov Seminary and then at the Kiev Theological Academy, graduating in 1874, after which he taught at the Tambov Seminary. He was ordained to the priesthood in the early 1880s and served as a parish priest in the town of Kozlov in the Tambov region.

According to the accounts of his life, the death of his wife and only child in 1886 led him to embrace monasticism. He was tonsured a monk with the name Vladimir and appointed to lead a monastery in Kozlov, advancing to the rank of archimandrite. Within a few years he was raised to the episcopate.

Hierarchical Career

Consecrated a bishop in 1888, Vladimir served in succession in several of the principal sees of the Russian Church. He held an appointment connected with Samara, then served as Exarch of Georgia (Archbishop of Kartali and Kakheti) from 1892 to 1898. He was thereafter Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna (1898-1912), Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, later Petrograd, and Ladoga (1912-1915), and from 1915 Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia.

As the senior metropolitan he served as chairman of the Most Holy Synod in the years before the Revolution. He took part in the All-Russian Local Council convened in Moscow in 1917-1918, the council that restored the Moscow Patriarchate, and by tradition it was he who announced the election of St. Tikhon as Patriarch.

Martyrdom

In January 1918, as armed forces took control of the Kiev Caves Lavra, Metropolitan Vladimir remained at the monastery. On the night of January 25, a band of armed soldiers came to the quarters of the seventy-year-old hierarch, searched his rooms, and led him out beyond the monastery walls under the pretext of taking him for interrogation. There he was killed.

By tradition, before his death he prayed and blessed his executioners with the words, 'May God forgive you.' His body was afterward found pierced by two bullet wounds and three stab wounds. He is remembered as the first hierarch of the Russian Church to be martyred under the Soviet regime, and his relics rest in the Far Caves of the Kiev Caves Lavra.

Veneration

Metropolitan Vladimir was glorified as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1992. He is counted among the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, the assembly of those who suffered under the Soviet persecutions of the twentieth century, and is commemorated on January 25 (February 7 New Style).