Ioann (Laba)

Ioann (Laba) was born on July 3, 1863, in the village of Serebriya, Gaysinsky Uyezd, Kiev Governorate. He took monastic vows with the name Flavy.

He was ordained a priest and served in the Thebaid skete of the Russian Monastery of Saint Panteleimon on Mount Athos, participating in the Name-glorifying movement.

In May 1912, he was appointed as the confessor of the Thebaid skete by Monk Irenaeus (Tsurikov). On December 2 of the same year, he attended a meeting of the brethren of the Thebaid skete, where the "Conciliar Deliberation on the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ" was adopted in the spirit of Name-glorification. According to Archbishop Nikon (Rozhdestvensky) of Vologda, in June 1913, he visited him several times, "sometimes repenting, sometimes renouncing Orthodox teaching again," and only after a conversation with the teacher Troitsky and long hesitation did he renounce Name-glorification. He signed a petition submitted by Athonite monks for consideration by the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, compiled on October 27, 1917, as an addition to the petition dated October 15 of the same year. The Name-glorifiers asked to "review the Athonite case" and lift the ecclesiastical excommunication from them.

In 1924, he was arrested in the city of Armavir, sentenced by the OGPU Special Council under Article 58-1, and exiled to Naryn. He served his sentence in Turtkul and Sharuqhan.

In 1930, he was sentenced again by the OGPU Special Council to three years of exile. He was exiled to Takmak, where he lived with Monk Hilarion (Tsurikov) in a gorge near Takmak.

On June 24, 1937, he was arrested in the city of Mirzoyan and held in the Mirzoyan prison.

From 1919 to 1920, he lived in seclusion near the farmstead Solyony (now Temryuk district, Krasnodar region).

On June 29, 1924, both were arrested for "opposing Soviet power and clinging to the old ways." The OGPU USSR Special Council sentenced him to three years of exile in the Narym region. He served his sentence in the village of Podyelnik, Tomsk Governorate. After his exile, he settled with Venerable Martyr Hilarion in the mountains on a beekeeping farm near the city of Frunze (now Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan).

On February 2, 1930, Venerable Martyrs Hilarion and Ioann were arrested for "anti-Soviet activities."

On June 9, the OGPU Central Asia Special Council sentenced Monk Ioann to three years of exile in the city of Kzyl-Orda (now Kyzylorda, Kazakhstan). He served his sentence in the city of Turtkul, Karakalpak ASSR.

After being released from the camp in 1935, he settled in the city of Aulie-Ata (in 1936-1938 - Mirzoyan, now Taraz, Kazakhstan), where Venerable Martyr Hilarion lived after his exile. They secretly conducted services and monastic tonsures.

On June 24, 1937, they were arrested for "defeatist agitation" and "participation in a counter-revolutionary organization" as "leaders of a secret monastery" and imprisoned in the city of Mirzoyan. He was tried along with Venerable Martyr Hilarion in the group case of Archbishop Alexei (Orlov) of Omsk. He did not plead guilty.

On August 23, he was sentenced to death by shhoting by the NKVD Troika of the South Kazakhstan region.

He was buried in an unknown grave.

He was glorified by the Jubilee Bishops' Council in 2000 under the name Ioann (as mentioned in the investigative files).