Irakliy (Matyakh)

In the world known as Sergei Matyakh, he was born in 1863 in Chernihiv Governorate into a Cossack family.

According to his own account, he was given to the monastery as a child and did not remember his parents. When the time came, he took the monastic tonsure with the name Joseph.

He entered the Holy Trinity Monastery on the northern shore of Lake Issyk-Kul.

On March 25, 1905, he was tonsured into the mantia with the name Irinei. He performed obedience duties as a bell ringer and assistant steward.

In 1914, he left the monastery and served for a time at the archbishop's dacha in the city of Verny (now Almaty, Kazakhstan), before returning to the monastery.

During the Kyrgyz uprising in 1916, the rebels attacked Issyk-Kul Trinity Monastery. Some of the brethren fled to a nearby island by boat, but Irinei and others remained in the monastery.

On August 11, the rebels looted the monastery and brutally killed all the monks they found. Irinei survived by hiding under the shingles of the bell tower. Some time later, he took the great schema with the name Irakliy. He spent the rest of his life fervently praying for his martyred brethren and repenting that he did not go with them to Golgotha.

After the destruction of Issyk-Kul Monastery, he ended up in the Aksay Gorge in a hermitage in the Kyzyl-Zhar area near Verny. There, together with his fellow hermits, Hieromonks Seraphim, Feognost, Pakhomiy, and Anatoliy, he carried out his prayerful labor.

In early August 1921, all five hermits from Aksay Gorge went to the Nikolsky Church in the city to celebrate the feast of the Great Martyr and Healer Panteleimon. After the feast, Irakliy and Pakhomiy stayed in the city, while the others returned to the mountain hermitage. That night, Fathers Seraphim and Feognost were killed, and Anatoliy managed to escape. Following this event, the remaining three ascetics never returned to the mountains.

Schema-Monk Irakliy moved to the village of Talgar, where he lived with the family of the church elder Dmitriev.

He often went into the mountains for long periods to pray. Around 1928, he left for the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul, where he built a cell in the mountains and lived in complete solitude for some time. Shortly after his departure, the Dmitriev family was arrested and exiled to the Aral Sea.

In early winter 1928, Miron Nikolaevich Dubinin, a resident of the village of Sazonovka (now Ananyev, Kyrgyzstan), was riding a horse in the mountains. Hearing a groan, he followed the sound and found a cell with the elder Irakliy in it, dressed in torn and tattered monastic clothing. The elder was groaning in pain due to a severely injured arm. Seeing his distress, Miron managed to persuade him to come to the village. After recovering, the venerable elder said he couldn't live in their house. So, Miron helped him set up a cell in the garden, in a shed that served as a kitchen.

While living with the Dubinins, he continued his ascetic practices. He read the Midnight Office, Matins, Hours, Typica, Vespers, and Compline daily. He slept little and in short intervals, never lying down in bed, but spending most of his time standing in prayer. When exhausted, he would briefly fall asleep sitting on a bench, then rise again for prayer.

The news of an elder schema-monk living in Sazonovka quickly spread throughout the area. People began coming to him for advice and prayers. He gave everything he received to Miron's wife. He rarely left his cell, attending services at the local church and the church in the neighboring village of Semenovka. He opposed the renovationist movement.

In 1929, during the campaign against kulaks in Sazonovka, the Bolsheviks started inquiring about the elder Irakliy. Miron Dubinin initially claimed he was his uncle. When the authorities found out this wasn't true, Miron escorted the elder to his cousin Andrey Dubinin's house but was soon arrested and imprisoned, from which he never returned.

The elder was taken in by the Bocharnikov family, who lived in extreme poverty in a dilapidated one-room house with a stove they slept on.

Soon, the wave of dekulakization reached this poor family because they also refused to join the collective farm. The head of the family was tied up and taken away but released by evening. The house was stripped of everything, leaving only bare boards.

Seeing that the Bocharnikovs had nothing to sleep on, the venerable elder brought two burlap sacks from his cell, covered the children, and said, "Well, little ones, lie down and sleep, and we will sit. Tomorrow, God will provide, and people will help." He sat with them all night, strengthening them with prayers and stories from the lives of the saints, about their patience, meekness, and humility. Indeed, the next morning, Bocharnikov's relatives and other villagers came and brought them a little of everything.

It was revealed to Elder Irakliy by the Lord that he would die on the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord. He requested a schema monk's robe to be sewn by this time, embroidered it with crosses himself, and explained how he wished to be buried.

In June 1937, he fell gravely ill. Until his last moment, the elder remained conscious. At the moment of death, he called out to Sergei Feodotovich, crossed his hands over his chest, took his last breath, and closed his eyes. This occurred on the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, June 10, 1937.

On August 11, 1993, Schema-Monk Irakliy was glorified among the locally venerated saints of the Almaty Diocese. In August 2000, the Jubilee Holy Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church included his name in the Assembly of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia for general church veneration.

On September 13, 2004, the relics of Venerable Irakliy were discovered at the Orthodox cemetery in the village of Ananyev. Upon discovering the relics, a wooden cross measuring 30x16 cm and well-preserved remnants of black fabric with the image of the schema cross were found. The next day, the holy relics were transferred to the Resurrection Cathedral in Bishkek. Initially, the relics were placed in the altar section and brought out for general veneration in the church twice a year: on June 10 (the day of the venerable's repose) and on September 13 (the day of the relics' discovery).

On October 27-28, 2008, the relics were removed from the altar and placed for permanent veneration in a specially designed reliquary with a canopy, located in the southern part of the church.

Service to the Venerable Confessor Irakliy of Issyk-Kul