Mytrofan Yavdas
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Mytrofan Yavdas— was a Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox protoiereus (archpriest) and religious author who suffered persecution and imprisonment while living in the Soviet Union.
Mitrofan Yavdas was born in town of Yakimovo, Poltava Oblast on 3 June 1903. He studied at the Institute of National Education of Poltava. He was ordained as a clergyman of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in 1925 and served as parish priest in Kuzemino, Poltava Oblast, during the years 1925—1927, and then in the town Zinkiv during the years 1927—1929.[1]
Soviet imprisonment
On 8 September 1929, he was arrested by the OGPU as part of a Soviet anti-religious campaign and confined in the Poltava prison. In 1930 he was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment and hard labor by an OGPU "troika" (tribunal). He served his sentence in the mines of the Far Eastern concentration camps of the OGPU.[1] By the end of 1937, he returned from exile to Ukraine.
During the Second World War, he lived in the town of Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. During the years 1941—1942, he assisted Protoiereus Simon Yavtushenko to organize the church activities of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Nikopol Raion.
