Akathist to the Holy Venerable Amphilochius of Pochaev

Amphilochius of Pochaev
(1894 - 1971), schema-abbot, reverend Memory on April 29, December 19 (Ukr.) and in the Councils of Volyn and Galician saints

In the world, Yakov Varnavovich Golovatyuk, was born on November 27, 1894 in the village of Malaya Ilovitsa in the Volyn province (now Shumsky district of the Ternopil region) into a large peasant family. At baptism he was named Jacob, in honor of the martyr Jacob the Persian. From an early age, Yakov, immersed in household chores, seeing the piety of his parents, who never left the house without prayer, absorbed all that was good and holy. In his youth, Yakov more than once helped his father, who was often addressed as a good chiropractor “to hold the sick while he was directing broken bones.” The natural strength and skills acquired in his youth were useful to Yakov in the future.

In 1912, Yakov was drafted into the army. During the First World War, he served in the 165th Infantry Regiment in the city of Lutsk, then, together with the regiment, he was sent to the city of Tomsk, acting as a paramedic. At the end of the war he was captured. He was sent by the Germans to the Alps, where he worked for a local farmer for three years. Jacob earned the trust and love of his master, so that he even intended to marry him to his daughter. But in 1919, Yakov escaped and returned to his native village, where he began to do his usual peasant work and helped the sick who sought help.

In 1925 he was accepted as a novice into the Pochaev Lavra. Fulfilling the obediences assigned to him, he made sleighs and wheels, and sang in the choir.

On July 8, 1932, he was tonsured a monk with the name Joseph.

On September 21, 1933, he was ordained a hierodeacon by Bishop Anthony (Martsenko), and on September 27, 1936, he was ordained a hieromonk by Bishop Dionysius.

He graduated from the full course of the monastic and theological school at the Pochaev Lavra.

On October 3, 1941, he was appointed assistant economist.

Performing various works and obediences in the Lavra, Father Joseph treated the sick - he especially became famous as a chiropractor. Suffering people from all over the area were brought to him, the flow of patients did not stop day or night. In order not to create inconvenience for the brethren, Father Joseph, with the blessing of the governor of the Lavra, moves to a small house in the monastery cemetery, here he and Hieromonk Irinarch will live for about 20 years. Every day sick people came to the small house. There were days when Hieromonk Joseph received up to 500 people, many longed for healing - some physical, some spiritual.

During the Great Patriotic War, Father Joseph fearlessly preached about imminent deliverance from the fascist invaders, called for loyalty to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' and accused the schismatic autocephalists of treason.

At the end of the war, the ascetic miraculously escaped reprisals. One night, fourteen armed men burst into his cell and demanded food; after they were fed, they asked the elder to see them out. At the gate, the commander of the partisan detachment announced the execution. The elder accepted the news of his imminent death with humility and asked only for ten minutes to pray. I managed to read “Our Father”, “Theotokos”, “I Believe”, began to read “Otkhodnaya”... Father Irinarch came running, worried about the elder’s long absence, when he saw the barrel aimed at the righteous man, without hesitation, he rushed to the machine gun, bending him to the ground, and began ask the elder for mercy... Death has passed. Soon after this, Father Joseph was transferred back to the Lavra.

On May 10, 1951 he was appointed assistant guardian of the Foot of the Mother of God.

On July 18, 1952, he was appointed gardener of the Lavra garden with release from his previous obedience.

On February 24, 1953 he was elevated to the rank of abbot.

On May 4, 1954, he was assigned to obedience under a candle box.

On November 24, 1955, he was released from his previous obedience and appointed to the choir;

On April 6, 1957, he was released from choir obedience and appointed confessor of pilgrims.

On January 25, 1959, he was appointed a seller of candles in the churches of the Lavra.

From 1959 to 1962 he served as confessor and others.

At the end of the 1950s, Khrushchev's persecution of the church began. Monasteries and churches were closed en masse in the country, and the monks themselves were expelled, evicted, and sent home without the right to return on false charges. In the fall of 1962, thanks to the fearlessness of the elder, the monks managed to defend the Trinity Cathedral: “A dozen policemen and their chief were standing at the church door, the elder unexpectedly snatched the keys from the chief, handed them to the young governor Augustine
, and said: “Here, try and don’t give it to anyone.” He said to the perplexed policemen: “The bishop is the owner of the Church! What about V? get the word out! People, drive them away!” he addressed the local residents present. Inspired by the call of their beloved priest, people rushed to take the poles and rushed towards the police, who, in fear, rushed to run to the Holy Gates. Father Joseph knew that the authorities would not forgive him for this act, he knew when and how they would come for him, but did nothing.

A few days later, a “black raven” came for him, and he was taken to a psychiatric hospital in Budaniv, outside Ternopil. He was placed in a ward for the most “violent” mentally ill. He was injected with drugs that caused his entire body to swell and his skin to crack. The torment ended only with the arrival of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin’s daughter, at the hospital, whom he had once healed from mental illness. She managed to achieve the release of the elder.

In the fall of 1965, Fr. Joseph returned to his native village and settled with his niece Anna, the daughter of his late brother Panteleimon, who lived in the same village in a new small house. In the courtyard he built a high dovecote, and under it a small chapel. A long dining table was placed behind the chapel for pilgrims, and a chapel was also built. Having learned where the elder was, the sufferers began to arrive. Father Joseph served holy water prayers every day and healed people.

Local authorities, concerned about the influx of sick people into the village, began to turn relatives against the elder.
In December 1965, one of them, succumbing to persuasion, deceiving the elder, took him on his tractor outside the village to the swamps, severely beat him, threw him into the water and drove away. The priest lay in the icy water for eight hours, the spiritual children found the dying old man, took him to the Pochaev Lavra, where that same night he was tonsured into the schema with a name in honor of St. Amphilochius of Iconia, they were afraid that he would not live until the morning. By the grace of God, schemamonk Amphilochius recovered. It was dangerous to stay in the Lavra without registration; he returned to his native village again. People still went and went to the elder for healing. On the northern side of the courtyard they built a long building and in it they built a refectory and a kitchen, a reception room for the sick, a bedroom for novices and a house church - a long hall with two side rooms: in one the church vestments were kept, in the other - Father Joseph prayed and rested. The elder, who loved nature since childhood, planted flowers and fruit trees himself, and the novices helped with work on the site.

Father Amphilochius foresaw his imminent death, he knew that one of his novices had added poison to his food, and also added poison to the water with which he washed himself (there is an opinion that the novice from Kyiv was a KGB agent). More than once the elder said with bitterness that among his novices there was “Judas.” Father lost consciousness several times for several hours. During the attacks, the poisoner, under various pretexts, did not allow anyone near the priest. The humble elder steadfastly endured the suffering and called on the culprit to repent.

Died on January 1, 1971.

On April 3, 2002, he was canonized by the decision of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The rite of glorification was performed on May 12 of the same year by Metropolitan Vladimir of Kyiv in the Assumption Church of the Pochaev Lavra. On May 13, the relics of the saint were transferred from the Assumption Cathedral to the church-crypt of St. Job of Pochaevsky located underneath it, where they now rest next to the latter’s relics. December 8, 2005 name of Rev. Amphilochia was included in the calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II, his memory is celebrated on April 29.

By the determination of the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church on February 2-3, 2021, his name was included in the month book of the Russian Orthodox Church for church-wide veneration [1].

Prayers

Troparion, ch. 4

(from the Service approved by the decision of the Holy Synod of July 14, 2018, magazine No. 61 [2])

The land of Volyn is glorious for an ascetic/ and the monastery of Pochaev is worthy of a inhabitant,/ for Orthodox people a great healer,/ Christ our God has revealed you to His Church,/ Rev. Father Amphilo Oh, / We earnestly pray to Him // to free ourselves from the slander of the enemy and to save our souls.

Kontakion, tone 2

(from the Service approved by the decision of the Holy Synod of July 14, 2018, magazine No. 61 [2])

By the will of the Most Pure Virgin/ you settled in the monastery of the Most Pious,/ where you saw off your ascetic and sorrowful life,/ you became enriched with the gift of intelligent prayer/ and I am the heir of the Kingdom of Heaven thou hast risen./ Moreover we cry unto thee:/ Rejoice, Amphilochie, blessed Father, // healer and more miraculous.

Kontakion, voice 3

(from the Service approved by the decision of the Holy Synod of July 14, 2018, magazine No. 61 [2])

As a zealot of the Orthodox faith/ and a teacher of pious living,/ in illness and sorrow a fair helper (and protector

[3]
),/ stand before the Lord, like Amphilochia,/ for this reason we cry out to you:/ protect the monastery where you labored,// and save us with your prayers, blessed Father.

Venerable Amphilochius of Pochaev

(1894–1971)

In the Ukrainian village of Malaya Ilovitsa, on December 10 / November 27, 1894, a son was born to Varnava and Anna Golovatyuk; at holy baptism the boy was named Jacob.

Barnabas, the father of ten children, had to take on any job: he made wheels, blocks, sleds, and sick peasants turned to him for help, as if he were a good chiropractor. As a young man, Jacob more than once helped his father “hold back the sick when he straightened broken bones.” Jacob's natural strength and skills acquired in his youth were useful.

In 1912, Jacob was drafted into the Tsarist Army, where he served as a paramedic. During the fighting, he helped carry wounded comrades from the battlefield, was captured, and was sent by the Germans to the Alps, where he worked for a farmer for three years. In 1919, Jacob managed to escape, returning to his native village, began to do his usual peasant work, and helped the sick who asked for help.

In 1925, Jacob was accepted as a novice into the Pochaev Lavra. In diligence and humility, the new monk fulfilled the obediences assigned to him: he made sleighs, wheels, sang in the choir...

On July 8, 1932, with the blessing of Metropolitan Dionysius of Warsaw and all Poland, Jacob was tonsured a monk with the name Joseph.

On September 21, 1933, he was ordained hierodeacon by Bishop Anthony, and hieromonk on September 27, 1936.

Performing various works and obediences in the Lavra, Father Joseph treated the sick, and became especially famous as a chiropractor. Suffering people from all over the area were brought to him, the flow of patients did not stop day or night. In order not to create inconvenience for the brethren, Father Joseph, with the blessing of the governor of the Lavra, moves to a small house in the monastery cemetery, here he and Hieromonk Irinarch will live for about 20 years. Every day sick people came to the small house. There were days when Hieromonk Joseph received up to 500 people, many longed for healing - some physical, some spiritual.

The ascetic dedicated himself entirely to serving God, having received from God the gift of insight and healing, and helped his neighbors all his life. His many secret exploits and struggles remained hidden from the world.

At the end of the war, the ascetic miraculously escaped reprisals. One night, fourteen armed men burst into his cell and demanded food; after they were fed, they asked the elder to see them out. At the gate, the commander of the partisan detachment announced the execution. The elder accepted the news of his imminent death with humility and asked only for ten minutes to pray. I managed to read “Our Father”, “Theotokos”, “I Believe”, began to read “Otkhodnaya”... Father Irinarch came running, worried about the long absence of the elder, when he saw the barrel aimed at the righteous man, without hesitation, he rushed to the machine gun, bending him to the ground, began ask the elder for mercy... Death has passed.

At the end of the 50s, Khrushchev's persecution of the church began. Monasteries and churches were closed en masse in the country, and the monks themselves were expelled, evicted, and sent home without the right to return on false charges. In the fall of 1962, thanks to the elder’s fearlessness, the monks managed to defend the Trinity Cathedral: “A dozen policemen and their chief were standing at the church door, the elder unexpectedly snatched the keys from the chief, handed them to the young governor Augustine and called on local residents to defend the temple. The peasants, armed with poles, rushed towards the policemen.” The Trinity Cathedral was defended, but a few days later the elder was taken at night on a “black crow” to a psychiatric hospital. He was placed in a ward for the most “violent” mentally ill people. He was injected with drugs that caused his entire body to swell and his skin to crack.

His father’s spiritual children wrote letters asking for the elder’s release. Three months later he was brought to the chief physician's office. They asked whether he could cure those patients who were in the ward with him.

The elder said that in two weeks he would cure all the sick, and asked to bring him the Holy Gospel, cross and vestments so that he could serve the Holy Moleben.

In response I heard: “No, you are treating without prayers.”

“This is impossible,” answered the meek old man. When a soldier goes into battle, he is given a weapon... Our weapons against the invisible enemy are the holy cross, the holy Gospel and holy water.

Father Joseph was taken to the ward.

The torment ended only with the arrival of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin’s daughter, at the hospital, whom he had once healed from mental illness. She managed to achieve the release of the elder.

Elder Joseph returned to his native village and settled with his nephew.

Having learned where the elder was, the sufferers began to arrive. Father Joseph served Holy Molebens daily and healed people. Local authorities, concerned about the influx of sick people into the village, began to turn relatives against the elder; one of them, succumbing to persuasion, deceiving the elder, took him on his tractor out of the village to the swamps, severely beat him, threw him into the water and left. On a cold December day, the martyr lay in icy water for eight hours, the spiritual children found the dying old man, took him to the Pochaev Lavra, where that same night he was tonsured into the schema with the name Amphilochius, in honor of St. Amphilochius of Hippo, they were afraid that he would not live until the morning . By the grace of God, schemamonk Amphilochius recovered. It was dangerous to stay in the Lavra without registration; he returned to his native village again. People still went and went to the elder for healing.

In the courtyard, Father Joseph served daily prayers for the Blessing of Water, and many believers received healings. Father Joseph blessed some sick people not to eat food on Wednesday and Friday. On days of strict fasting, he ordered early in the morning, getting out of bed, before the start of morning prayer, to immediately make three prostrations to the ground with the prayer “Virgin Mother of God, rejoice...” in order to easily maintain the fast on that day.

You had to have great love in your heart so as never to refuse anyone anything. The Elder of God had one. He found time for everyone.

From the memories of the elder’s spiritual children:

“Modern young men also came to their father and complained of mental anguish, lack of sleep and appetite. The elder placed them in the middle of the courtyard and asked them to make 450 prostrations; He ordered that they do the same at home every evening, wear crosses, don’t drink, don’t smoke, go to church, keep fasts, take communion, and all the “nerves” will go away and be healthy. At the same time, he added that the nerves feel pain, but when the soul hurts, it is not “the nerves are upset, but demons are tormenting, and we must fight them with fasting and prayer. …”. Dejection and emptiness in the soul, the elder believed, were due to excessive talking, gluttony, and covetousness. He then ordered to sing “Elitsa, be baptized into Christ” and “God with us” every hour and day.

The ascetic spent the whole day with people and prayed at night.

The young woman Tatyana, a resident of Pochaev, was an unbeliever and did not go to church. As a result of blockage of the veins, gangrene began. Doctors insisted on amputation. The woman pulled as long as she could. And then, having learned about Father Amphilochie, she borrowed money and went. The priest came out of the cells and looked around the line. And he called her from the crowd. After listening to Tatyana, he said that there was no need to do the operation. He gave ointment, holy water and told what prayers to read, then, taking 50 rubles from the locker, he gave it to the woman, seeing with spiritual vision about her financial difficulties. Soon Tatyana was healed not only in body - the gangrene disappeared, but also in her soul - she began to constantly go to church.

Two friends came from Dnepropetrovsk to visit the priest. One of them was deaf and dumb. Even as a child, she was severely beaten by her stepmother. Father Amphilochius asked the deaf-mute girl:

- What is your name?

“She’s deaf and dumb,” a surprised friend intervened.

“Be silent,” the elder answered and again turned to the patient with a question.

The girl began to make sounds from which her name was formed - Galya. She began to speak and began to hear.

According to eyewitnesses: one day, when the elder went to see a sick person for the whole day, a dying boy of 13 was brought to him. Late at night, the elder returned and learned that the sick boy had died without waiting for help. The elder approached the bench on which the deceased lay, bent over him and prayed for a long time, then crossed him, the boy opened his eyes and came to life.

From the memoirs of Shumalovich K.:

“In the summer of 1961, my son’s hand became swollen. It almost doubled in size and was very painful. We took the child to the doctor, but they could not help. Then we turned to Father Joseph. He prayed, took his son’s hand in his, lightly patted it, and said that everything would pass. The next morning we couldn't believe our eyes. A miracle happened! The hand was the same as before the illness.”

In the fall of 1965, the elder settled with his niece; with the help of his spiritual children, a small chapel was built on the site, above it a high dovecote, and a long dining table in the courtyard for pilgrims.

The elder said that, by the grace of God, he knew in advance about seriously ill people who should come to him; there were cases that he went out to meet the sick at night in bad weather.

Many evidences of the elder’s foresight have been preserved. Nadezhda Simora heard from her mother a story about the elder’s insight: “A young woman turned to the priest for help to restore the sight of her son, who was blind from birth, Father Joseph answered the mother’s request that this was her sin. That, as a child, she climbed trees, took chicks and poked out their eyes with a needle... The woman began to cry, and the old man cried with her.”

From the memoirs of Agafia Lyashchuk (Rivne region):

– Somewhere in the sixties, my father fell ill... A medical commission diagnosed stomach cancer... We went to see my father. There were a lot of people in the yard. Everyone was waiting for him. Soon the elder came out and pointed his finger at me. I told him that my father was discharged from the hospital because he could not be cured. Father Joseph prayed, gave herbs and said that he would recover. My father lived after that for another 16 years.

Authorities forbade people to visit the elder. Buses were canceled, but people walked. Once the first secretary of the Ternopil regional party committee came to the old man and brought his only son. A nineteen-year-old boy had a sarcoma on his leg; the doctors were powerless. Elder Joseph, having examined the patient, asked to leave the young man for two weeks and warned that he would only be treated with prayer. The regional committee secretary agreed and arranged an overnight stay for his son in a nearby village. With the blessing of the elder, the young man came every day to the Holy Moleben, drank holy water, and ate consecrated food. Two weeks later, the sarcoma disappeared without a trace. The grateful father ordered a shuttle bus from Kremenets to Malaya Ilovitsa.

The elder, who loved nature since childhood, planted flowers and fruit trees himself, and the novices helped with work on the site.

The elder foresaw his imminent death, knew that one of his novices had added poison to his food, and added poison to the water with which he washed himself (there is an opinion that the novice from Kyiv was a KGB agent). More than once the elder said with bitterness that among his novices there was “Judas.” Father lost consciousness several times for several hours. During the attacks, the poisoner, under various pretexts, did not allow anyone near the priest.

The humble elder steadfastly endured the suffering and called on the culprit to repent.

The ascetic died on January 1, 1971. Shortly before his death, the elder said that everyone should come to his grave with their needs and illnesses, and promised even after death not to leave those in need of his prayerful help. After the funeral service for the elder, a believing woman was healed at the tomb of the righteous man. For three decades, miracles of healing were performed at the elder’s grave.

Moskvich Vinokurov N.I. For several years he suffered from back pain, massage and other medical procedures did not bring relief. During a trip to the Pochaev Lavra, he visited the brotherly cemetery: “At the grave of Schema-Abbot Amphilochius, having prayed tearfully, he asked the priest to heal me so that I could stand at the service and the pain has subsided. The next day my friend and I came again. The result was surprising. This is a real miracle.”

On April 23, 2002, the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church decided to canonize the Pochaev elder-schema-abbot Amphilochius. The rite of glorification of the Monk Amphilochius as a saint was performed on Sunday, May 12, in the throne church of the Assumption of the Pochaev Lavra.

On May 12, 2002, in the Pochaev Lavra, during the glorification of the saint, two crosses created from clouds appeared in the sky above the Lavra. For an hour, believers could watch this miracle - one large cross and next to it a slightly smaller one. The pilgrims said: “Well, now there will be two of them - Father Job and Father Amphilochius.”