Oleksandr Vyshniakov

Oleksandr Vyshniakov was born on May 10, 1880, to a family of a priest, Father Vasyl. The Vyshniakov family had 300 years of hereditary priesthood. 

He served during in the First World War as a chaplain. For his personal courage and heroism during one of the battles between the German and the Russian armies, Father Oleksandr was awarded the Soldier’s Cross of St George. After the First World War he moved to Kyiv, where his wife’s relatives lived. He was the rector of the Holy Trinity Church. 

He had significant disagreements with the Bolsheviks, which led to problems. He was repressed in the 1930s and spent time in the Gulag. Father Oleksandr returned from exile in 1940 and served as the rector of the Solomiansky church and then the church of St Nicholas in Podil. 

Shortly after the outbreak of the war news of the murders of Jews in Zhytomyr and Vinnytsia began to reach Kyiv. Kyiv Jews began to ask Father Oleksandr to baptise them into the Orthodox faith. The priest baptised Jews and issued them baptismal certificates on church forms. In this way he managed to save many Jewish families from execution. Among those rescued were the pianist Raiskyi, the opera soloist Ivanov, the dentist Pain and his family, and the conductor Raklin.

In the early days of the war Father Oleksandr baptised the family of a Hungarian Jew named Yan, who had a wife, Sima, and three children. When the executions of Jews began in Kyiv, the Germans sent the whole family to Babyn Yar. Yan managed to escape and ran to Father Oleksandr to ask him to testify before the Germans that his family had been baptised into Orthodoxy.

Putting on his robe and St George’s Cross, Father Oleksandr went to Babyn Yar. There he testified to the Germans that the family had been baptised and found almost all its members.

In early November he was arrested by the Gestapo. On November 6, 1941, Archimandrite Oleksandr Vyshniakov was shot dead in Babyn Yar.