Anna Petai

Holy New Martyr Anna Petai, née Veiding, was born in 1889, the daughter of an innkeeper of Mõniste, and was a teacher. In 1919 she married Theodor Petai; in 1929 she founded the Vastse-⁠Roosa branch of the women's home defence organization (Naiskodukaitse) and sat on its board.

After her husband's arrest on 14 June 1941, she and their daughters Helvi and Maret were deported to a village in the Bakchar district of the Tomsk region. She died there on 23 February 1948. The daughters later returned to Estonia. The Ecumenical Patriarchate canonized her in 2012 together with her husband.

The Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate decided on 22 February 2012, on the proposal of the Orthodox Church of Estonia, to canonize eleven clergy and laity who suffered for the faith in the first years of the Soviet occupation: five priests, two deacons, a presbytera and three laypeople. The decision was read on 17 May 2012 in the Transfiguration Cathedral in Tallinn. They are remembered on 14 June, in memory of the deportations of 1941. The sources keep rather few details about the fate of each: some were executed, others died in prison or in camps.