Leonid Feodorov
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Leonid Ivanovich Feodorov (Russian: Леонид Иванович Фёдоров; 1879 - 1935) was a priest, Exarch, and reputed bishop for the Russian Catholic Church, in addition to being a survivor of the GULAG. After painstaking investigation, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II on June 27, 2001.
Feodorov was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia on November 4, 1879 into a Russian Orthodox family. After his graduation from the Second Imperial Gymnasium in 1901, he enrolled in the Orthodox Ecclesiastical Academy in order to study for the priesthood in the Russian Orthodox Church. After much soul searching, he left the academy in the summer of 1902 in order to embrace Catholicism. He traveled to the Vatican by way of Austrian-ruled Lviv, where Archbishop Andriy Sheptytsky of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church blessed his mission.
On July 31, 1902, Feodorov formally converted to Catholicism in Rome. After studying in the Pontifical College at Anagni he was ordained a priest by Bishop Michael Mirov on March 25, 1911. He spent the following years as a Catholic monk in Bosnia and Ukraine.
On the eve of the First World War, Father Leonid returned to Saint Petersburg where he was immediately exiled to Tobolsk in Siberia as a potential threat to the Tsar's government which held Russian Orthodoxy as its state religion.
After the February Revolution, the Provisional Government ordered the release of all political prisoners. A three day Synod of the Russian Catholic Church opened in Saint Petersburg under the leadership of Archbishop Sheptytsky. The Archbishop appointed Leonid Feodorov as Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church. Rumors have circulated since then that Archbishop Sheptytsky also secretly consecrated Feodorov as a bishop. As if to confirm the rumors, a photograph survives of the Exarch dressed in the vestments of a bishop.
Open persecution of religion began in 1922. The clergy were forbidden to preach religion to anyone under eighteen years. Then, all the churches were closed. in 1923, all the Catholic priests and bishops were rounded up and placed on trial for counterrevolution. The Exarch Leonid Feodorov was sentenced to ten years in the GULAG.
After serving three years in the concentration camp at Solovki, the Exarch was released and exiled to Mogilev, in Belarus. After continuing to spread Catholicism, he was arrested again and returned to Solovki.
In the concentration camp of Solovki, Mass was offered in a chapel which had been restored for the purpose with the permission of the guards. The Exarch would offer the Liturgy of the Russian Catholic Church every other Sunday. When the camp authorities cracked down in 1929, the Masses continued in secret.
On August 6, 1929, the Exarch was released to the town of Pinega in the Arkhangelsk Oblast and put to work making charcoal. After continuing to teach the Catechism to young boys, he was transferred to the village of Poltava, in Ukraine where he completed his sentence in 1932. He chose to reside in Viatka, where, worn out by the rigors of his imprisonment, he died on March 7, 1935.
On June 27, 2001 Leonid Feodorov was beatified by Pope John Paul II. He remains deeply venerated among Russian Catholics.
