New Martyrs of Batak

The New Martyrs of Batak are Orthodox Christians of Batak and Novo Selo, killed in 1876, in the April Uprising, in the Batak massacre. Thousands of Bulgarians, including women and children, were killed by armed Ottoman forces after the failure of the April 1876 uprising, which aimed at liberating Bulgaria from the empire. The atrocities raised an outcry in the West and brought sympathy for the Bulgarian cause.

Churches that keep the old calendar numbered them among the saints on 17 May 2006 (the Bulgarian Old Calendar Orthodox Church). The Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church decided on their canonization in March 2011, and on 4 April 2011, at the Saint Alexander Nevsky Memorial Cathedral, during the Divine Liturgy served by Patriarch Maxim of Bulgaria, the new saints killed in the church at Batak in 1876 were canonized. Their first icon was painted at the monastery of the Holy Grand Duchess Elizabeth in Etna, California, for the canonization of 2006.