Venerable Kuksha of Odesa, though he completed his earthly journey on the shores of the Black Sea, spent more than 25 years in ascetic labours at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. From its threshold began the monastic struggle of the young Kosma Velichko, as he was known in the world, and from there, years later, he was sent forth as a spirit-bearing elder renowned throughout the country.

During 62 years of monastic life, Venerable Kuksha of Odesa was twice a novice—first on Mount Athos before his monastic tonsure and later at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra to confirm the validity of his Athonite tonsure. He was compelled to relocate to five monasteries, served as a parish priest, and endured arrests, searches, labour camps, exile, severe illnesses, slander, insults, and misunderstandings.

The fruits of Venerable Kuksha’s confessorial struggle—his gifts of foresight, healing, and the curing of spiritual and physical ailments—began to reveal themselves during his lifetime. His veneration started immediately after his repose. To this day, people come to his reliquary and grave at the monastery’s brotherly cemetery, seeking the intercession of this holy ascetic and receiving relief in their sorrows and illnesses through his prayers.

For the Orthodox world, Venerable Kuksha of Odesa is a modern saint who endured the burdens of the relatively recent persecutions against faith and the Church—persecutions of a scale previously unknown in Church history. He belongs to that constellation of native saints who, during the fierce era of godless struggle against the Church, served God as once did Seraphim of Sarov and the elders of Optina and Glinsk, radiating the light of love, patience, and compassion to the world. The Lord glorified the elder during his life for the sake of Christ.

His life is a vivid example of the godless terror of the 1920s–1930s and the brutal postwar persecutions of Christians could not build a wall between man and God.

If a person seeks God, they will find Him.

Venerable Kuksha revealed himself in his sufferings as a true Christian.