Vladimir Ochab

Holy Hieromartyr Vladimir Ochab was born in 1900 in the village of Nehrybka near Przemyśl. After high school and military service he worked his family's land, and in 1927 he joined the movement of the Lemkos returning to Orthodoxy. He studied at the University of Warsaw and was ordained priest on 22 March 1931.

Metropolitan Dionysius sent him to serve in the Lemko land. From 1936 he was pastor at Buśno, in Hrubieszów County, at a time when Orthodox churches were being demolished; although he was threatened and fined by the authorities, he did not leave his parish and saved his church from destruction. In September 1938 he became a prison chaplain, with the rank of captain, at Drohobych. He was arrested by the NKVD on 13 October 1939, held in the camps at Shepetivka and Ostashkov, and taken on 22 April 1940 to Tver, where he was shot and buried in the mass graves at Mednoye. He held the rank of major. Like Victor Romanowski, he is counted among the victims of Katyn, although he died at Tver.

The Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church decided on 18 March 2025, at the session of its Council of Bishops, to canonize the martyrs of the Katyn massacre, among them these three priests, together with other clergy and faithful whose names God alone knows. The solemn proclamation took place on 16 September 2025 in the church of Holy Wisdom (Saint Sophia) in Warsaw, where Metropolitan Sawa read the act of canonization and the icon of the new martyrs was presented.