Righteous Vasily (Basil) Aleksandrovich Martysh

Hieromartyr Vasily (Basil) Aleksandrovich Martysh was born on February 20, 1874, in the village of Teratyn in the Kholm region, the son of a judge who later became a monk. He graduated from the Kholm Theological Seminary in 1897, was ordained around 1900, and was sent as a missionary priest to Alaska, later serving parishes of the North American Diocese, including Waterbury, Connecticut, until December 1907. Returning to Poland, he served from 1919 to 1936 as a military protopresbyter — chaplain to the Polish Army. On Good Friday, May 4, 1945, his home in Teratyn was attacked amid the wave of anti-Orthodox violence carried out by UPA bands active in the Kholm region since 1943, and he was killed. He was buried in Teratyn; his remains were moved to Warsaw's Wola Orthodox cemetery in 1963, and his relics were rediscovered in 2003 and now rest in the Church of St. John Climacus, Warsaw. He was glorified by the Polish Orthodox Church on March 20, 2003, among the Martyrs of Kholm and Podlasie.