Susana Chorbadzhieva

Susana Chorbadzhieva († 1876) was a laywoman of Novo Selo (today Apriltsi), killed by the Turks on 9 May 1876, in the massacre in the church of the Holy Trinity Monastery. She was canonized as a holy martyr by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church on 3 April 2011; she is commemorated on 26 April (9 May by the new calendar), together with the other martyrs of Novo Selo.

When the bashi-⁠bazouks and Circassians burst into Novo Selo, set the houses on fire and passed over everything like locusts, many inhabitants fled to the mountains or the fields, and some of the nuns stayed in the monastery. Those who escaped the attack sheltered in the church. The Turks fired through the windows and struck several of the sisters, then entered the church and began to cut down all whom they found. Before the altar and within it the abbess, six more nuns and one laywoman met their death; the list of the martyrs names Susana Chorbadzhieva. Their bodies rest today in the monastery church.