Holy Hieromartyr Maxim Sandovich (+ 1914)

St. Maxim Sandovich (Feast Day - September 6)

By Father Edward Pehanich

Saint Maxim was born in 1886 in Zdynia in the Lemko region of Carpatho-Rus which was then a part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in present day Poland. His father, Tymofej, was the cantor of Zydnia’s Greek Catholic church. After completing his education in the nearby town of Jaslo and Nowy Sacz, he entered the Greek Catholic Basilian monastery in Krakow. Dissatisfied with the attempts to Latinize the Eastern rite to make it more acceptable to the Roman Catholic majority and also attempts to denationalize the Rusyns, he crossed the border into the Russian empire and entered the famed Orthodox monastery at Pochaev. It was while at the monastery that his outstanding potential attracted the attention of the illustrious Bishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) who enrolled him in the Orthodox seminary in Zhitomir.

He completed his seminary studies in 1911 and that same year married Pelagia Grigoryuk and was ordained to the Holy Priesthood. At that time in the Lemko region there was a growing movement away from the Greek Catholic Church to the Orthodox Faith of their ancestors. Fr. Maxim returned home to serve the Orthodox faithful in the villages of Hrab, Vysovatka and Dovhe. After serving his first Divine Liturgy in Hrab on December 2, 1911, the Austrian authorities, suspicious of the Orthodox Faith for its alleged “Russian sympathies,” issued an order forbidding any further Orthodox services. Father Maxim ignored the order and continued to conduct services in village homes. He was repeatedly fined and held under temporary arrest. Before Pascha in 1912, he was again arrested with his friend and spiritual father, Father Ignatij Hudyma, and held in prison for two years in a Lviv prison until their trial began on March 9, 1914. After being found not guilty he immediately returned to his native village and continued to minister to his Orthodox parishioners.

Synaxis of the Holy Martyrs and Confessors of the Eparchy of Chełm and Podlasie

During the Second World War in Poland, pseudo-military groups were formed who were under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, with the aim of cleansing the Orthodox flock of Poland. These ethnic and religious purges took place during the night in all the villages of Eastern Poland. Thousands of people were executed, either because they were Ukrainian citizens (about 12,000), or because they were Orthodox (about 1,200 Martyrs). On June 8, 2003, the Polish Orthodox Church, by its Synodal Decision, canonized seven clergymen, Protopresbyter Basil Martysz, Priest Paul Szwajko and his matushka Joanna, Priest Nicholas Holz, Priest Sergius Zacharczuk, Priest Leon Κorobczna, Priest Peter Οhryzko, Monk Ignatius of Jableczna, and all those who martyred for the Orthodox faith together with those known to God.

Hagia Sophia Church in Warsaw Is Completed

Eight years after the foundation stone was laid, construction work on the Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Warsaw was completed.

The happy news was announced to the faithful by His Eminence Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw and All Poland himself.

The Primate of the Church of Poland thanked everyone for their financial, physical and prayerful support in the entire construction process.

Metropolitan Sawa mentioned that the Cathedral was built in honor of those who died and were exiled in the Warsaw Uprising and in the labor camps in World War I and II.