Václav Ornest

Holy New Martyr Václav Ornest was born on 6 November 1887 in Prague and was a tailor by trade. In České Budějovice he married Františka Škrletová in 1911; they had two daughters, Marie and Miluše. There he helped to build up the community of the Czechoslovak Church and in 1920 was elected deputy chairman of its council of elders; the first vestments of that community's priests came from his workshop. When Bishop Gorazd left the Czechoslovak Church in 1924, he joined the Orthodox wing.

During the Protectorate he was a sacristan of the Orthodox Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Prague, in whose crypt the paratroopers hid after the attack on Heydrich. On 18 June 1942, before the church was stormed, he was arrested, and with him his wife Františka, his daughters Marie and Miluše and his son-⁠in-⁠law Karel Louda. All were shot in the back of the neck on 24 October 1942 at the Mauthausen camp, among the 262 relatives and helpers of the paratroopers killed that day.

The Synod of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia decided on 10 October 2019 to enter them among the saints, and the solemn glorification took place on 8 February 2020 at the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Prague, together with the other new martyrs of those years. They are remembered on 5 September.