19 Facts About Leonid Feodorov

Leonid Ivanovich Feodorov was a Studite hieromonk from the Russian Greek Catholic Church, the first Exarch of the Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Russia, and a survivor of the Gulag at Solovki prison camp.

Leonid Feodorov was beatified at Lviv by Pope John Paul II on 27 June 2001.

Lubov Leonid Feodorov used her husband's legacy of 15,000 rubles to send her son, out of a desire for him to move up in the world, to the First Imperial Gymnasium, where he was educated alongside the sons of the Russian nobility.

Leonid Feodorov often used to quote William Wordsworth's maxim, "War is the daughter of God", and intended following his graduation to become an officer in the Imperial Russian Army.

Konstantin, whom Father Paul Mailleux has termed, "one of the most remarkable Russian Orthodox priests of his time", Leonid Feodorov underwent a religious conversion and instead decided to study for the Orthodox priesthood.

The Ecclesiastical Academy was largely focused towards training civil service officials rather than priests, and Leonid Feodorov accordingly found it a great disappointment.

On 31 July 1902, Leonid Feodorov was formally received into the Catholic Church at the Church of the Gesu in Rome.

Brother Leonid Feodorov was tonsured with monastic name 'Leontiy' on 12 March 1913.

Leonid Feodorov served as abbot in the Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit in Petrograd, under his leadership the women's order of the Holy Family, the Community of Sisters of the Holy Spirit, and the Society of John Chrysostom were founded.

Leonid Feodorov made presentations, participated in discussions with Orthodox clergy, including Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and Metropolitan Benjamin of Petrograd.

Unlike the other defendants, Exarch Leonid Feodorov insisted on acting as his own attorney, which led to some of the most dramatic moments of the trial.

Leonid Feodorov's presence put the lie to the usual description of Catholicism as 'the Polish religion.

Leonid Feodorov pointed out that Greek-Catholics greeted the Revolution with joy, for only then did they have equality.

Leonid Feodorov pointed out that the Church, accused of having neglected the starving, was at that moment feeding 120,000 children daily.

In 1926, after serving the first three years of his sentence in Moscow's Butyrka prison, Exarch Leonid Feodorov was transported to Solovki prison camp, located in a former island monastery in the White Sea.

On 6 August 1929, Exarch Leonid Feodorov was released to the town of Pinega in the Arkhangelsk Oblast and put to work making charcoal.

Leonid Feodorov chose to reside in Viatka, where, worn out by the rigours of his imprisonment, he died on 7 March 1935.

On 27 June 2001, Exarch Leonid Feodorov was beatified during a Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy in Lviv, Ukraine by Pope John Paul II.

Leonid Feodorov remains deeply venerated among Russian Catholics and was highly praised by James Likoudis, a convert from Greek Orthodoxy to the Greek Byzantine Catholic Church, in his 2016 book, Heralds of a Catholic Russia: Twelve Spiritual Pilgrims from Byzantium to Rome.