Synaxis of the Martyrs of Chełm and Podlachia

The Synaxis of the Martyrs of Chełm and Podlachia is a feast of the Polish Orthodox Church, also accepted by the Russian Orthodox Church, in which are commemorated together the Orthodox Christians of the Chełm and Podlachia lands who gave their lives for the faith, mostly in the years of the Second World War and the period just after. It is not about a single saint but a synaxis of martyrs, which counts thirty-⁠eight ascetics plus the group of those killed at Puchały Stare. The feast is movable and is kept on the first Sunday after 1 June.

How the feast was established

The commemoration was established in three stages. On 20 March 2003 the Holy Council of Bishops of the Polish Orthodox Church, meeting at Lublin, canonized eight new martyrs who suffered for Christ and for the Orthodox faith. The glorification took place on 7-8 June 2003 at Chełm, the old capital of the region, under the leadership of Metropolitan Sava of Warsaw, a son of this land, with the participation of all the hierarchs of the Polish Church and representatives of most of the autocephalous Orthodox Churches, among them those of Constantinople, Moscow, Serbia, Romania, Greece and America.

On 29 October 2019 the Council of Bishops of the Polish Orthodox Church canonized thirty new martyrs killed on 30-31 January 1946 near the village of Puchały Stare, and decided that their names be added to the synaxis of the martyrs of Chełm and Podlachia. On 17 March 2020 another thirty martyrs from the same event were canonized. They are ordinary people, Orthodox peasants, men and women, killed by an armed group in January 1946, whose commemoration is set on the last Sunday of July.

Who the saints are

Among those commemorated are Archbishop Onuphrius (Gagalyuk), Metropolitan of Kursk, who died in 1938, the monk Ignatius (killed in 1942 by the Nazis), Archpriest Paul Shvaika and his wife Joanna (1943), the priests Sergius Zakharchuk (1943), Leo Korobchuk, Nicholas Golets and Peter Ogrizenko (1944), Archpriest Basil Martysh (1945), then the martyrs of Puchały Stare and Archimandrite Leontius (Stasevich), a confessor, who died in 1972. Most were killed in Chełm and Podlachia during the war, largely by Polish partisans, with the exception of the monk Ignatius, killed by the Nazis.

The troparion of the synaxis asks Christ, who glorified the martyrs of this land who endured harsh persecution for His sake, to strengthen in our hearts unity of mind and brotherly love, peace for the world and the strengthening of the Church.