Bishop Gorazd (Pavlík), Bishop of Moravia-Silesia

The Hieromartyr Gorazd was born on May 26, 1879, in the village of Hrubá Vrbka (South Moravia) as Matěj Pavlík. Originally a Roman Catholic priest (ordained 1902), he converted to Orthodoxy in 1920-1921; in 1921 he was consecrated Bishop of Moravia-Silesia under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Orthodox Church, becoming the first hierarch of the revived Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands. He built churches and translated liturgical texts into Czech.

After Czech paratroopers assassinated Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich on May 27, 1942, those involved in the assassination, who had taken refuge in the crypt of the Cathedral of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Prague, were discovered; when the Nazis arrested the clergy who had sheltered them, Bishop Gorazd voluntarily came forward in Prague and took written responsibility for what had happened, to protect his flock and the Church. He was arrested on June 25, 1942, tortured, and executed on September 4, 1942, together with two priests and a layman.

He was glorified by the Serbian Orthodox Church on May 4/17, 1961; he was formally proclaimed a saint on September 4/5, 1987, at Olomouc Cathedral in the presence of representatives of the Churches of Constantinople, Russia, and Serbia.

IMPORTANT IMAGE CORRECTION: the original image (file "gorazd_from_slivnica_monastery.jpg") almost certainly depicts a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT saint — Gorazd of Ohrid (9th century, a disciple of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, associated with Bulgarian/Slivnitsa monastic traditions, already processed separately in this database under the slug "gorazd_of_bulgaria"); Bishop Gorazd (Pavlík) has no documented connection to the Slivnitsa Monastery — his entire life was spent in Bohemia and Moravia. The mismatched image has been removed.