Minsk, January 6, 2017

On the night of January 5, the abbess of the Monastery of St. Xenia (in the Borisovo region of Minsk province, Belorus) Mother Vasilisa (Medved) was murdered, reports Sputnik.by.

The press secretary of the Belorussian exarchate (of the Russian Orthodox Church) Fr. Sergei Lepin commented on the incident, “I can confirm that Matushka Vasilisa was murdered. Mostly likely, the attacker was one of the [psychologically] ill residents, of which there are many in the monastery.” The local law enforcement agencies confirmed this fact, but have not released details.

“We are in great sorrow, such sorrow on the eve of the feast. Matushka was killed that night. I can’t say anything more,” one nun from the convent told the Sputnik news agency over the telephone. In her words, the law enforcement agencies are at work in the monastery and the assailant has been arrested. Later reports have determined that the mentally ill woman was a citizen of Belorus, but was originally from Kazakhstan.

Abbess Vasilisa (Medved) was born March 10, 1949 in the Ukraine. After graduating from the department of history of the Chernigov Institute for Educational Studies, she became a schoolteacher. She was a parishioner of the Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral in the Belorussian capital, and after receiving an education with the St. Elizabeth sisterhood she became a sister of mercy. In 2001 she became a novice at the St. Elizabeth Convent. In 2002, at the blessing of Metropolitan Philaret of Minsk and Slutzk, she became the abbess of the St. Xenia Convent in the village of Baran, outside of Minsk.

+ETERNAL MEMORAL TO MOTHER VASILISA