the holy new martyrs of eastern russia - Coptic Orthodox teaching

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been appointed for the podvoryes. I handed over to them the acts whereby
the podvoryes were received from the Turkish government, after which I
could go to Russia.
"While I had been on Athos, the Bolsheviks had taken Odessa. There was
no longer any Hetman. They began to send all the Russian and Ukrainian
prisoners to Odessa. I left on the next steamboat. On January 29th I arrived in
Odessa. There Soviet power was in control.
"In 1919 a certain Petlyura appeared and drove the Bolsheviks out of
Odessa. They fought for more than a year. In 1920 armies began to come to
Odessa from Crimea under the command of a certain General Imeling, and in
February the Bolsheviks again took Odessa. This was already the last battle,
and all the armies, and the intelligentsia, too, left Russia for Constantinople.
In 1920 the war came to an end, only in Siberia there was Kolchak, who was
also gradually retreating towards Manchuria and Vladivostok.
"We had nothing to live on in Odessa. I began to ask for some land to be
given to us. We were sixty people at the podvorye. They gave us some land
near the Yeremievka station, fifty versts from Odessa, in the village of
Kuzmenko. We had nothing: neither horses, nor ploughs, nor harrows. We
began as follows. First six monks would go there. Tailors and cobblers in the
villages began privately to sew boots, jackets and coats, and in exchange for
this work each would plough as much land as he could, so that we could sow
something. I also arrived on a pair of horses, as did the president of the
village. They stopped near me. The president, Manuel Sidorenko, came up to
me and said:
"'Drop it and leave, so that nobody's here tomorrow.'
"I said: 'We won't go - the government has given us this land.'
"He struck me twice. A boy from Kotalovka was with me. I said to him:
"'You see how Sidorenko beats me.'
"'I see,' he replied.
"'Go,' said Sidorenko for the second time.
"'I will not leave the plough,' I replied.
"He hit me again, pushed me away with his feet and left. I finished
ploughing as much as was necessary, sowed some oats and barley, and then
started harrowing. The boy had gone home with the horses, so I got on a train
and went to Odessa. I described everything in detail and went to the court. A
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