Saint Gorazd II

[Johnson]

http://www.orthodoxengland.btinternet.co.uk/oeczech.htm

The future Bishop Gorazd (Pavlik) was born on 26 May 1879 in the Moravian town of Hrubavrbka in the Czech Rupublic and was baptised Matthias. After schooling he finished the Roman Catholic theological faculty in Olomouc and was ordained priest. During his studies he had become interested in Orthodox Christianity and the mission of Sts Cyril and Methodius and visited Kiev.

With the formation of Czechoslovakia in 1918 and freedom from Austro-Hungarian Catholic tyranny, hundreds of thousands of people left the Catholic Church, among them Matthias Pavlik. Some of these people turned for help to the Serbian Orthodox Church (parts of which had also suffered from the same tyranny 1 ). As a result the Serbian Church consented to consecrate Fr Matthias bishop with the monastic name of Gorazd.

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'In history the successor to St. Methodius, the Archbishop of Moravia, was Bishop Gorazd. Through the intrigues of those who hated Orthodoxy, he was chased out of his native land and went to the south Slavs 2. And in you, Fr Gorazd, the Lord is raising up in Moravia a new Gorazd, the renewer of Orthodoxy amid the Czech people'.

On the 24 September 1921, now aged 42, Archimandrite Gorazd was named Bishop of Moravia and Silesia at the Vigil Service in the Cathedral of the Holy Archangel Michael in Belgrade. On the next day Patriarch Dimitri of Serbia consecrated Fr Gorazd bishop.

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Together with those who had remained faithful to Orthodoxy, the Bishop set to work. Churches were built and parishes organised in various parts of Bohemia. In all eleven churches and two chapels were built under him. Services were in Czech. Essential church books were published, for example the Book of Needs, catechisms and so on. Using his knowledge, experience and contacts, Bishop Gorazd also helped those who had returned to their ancestral Orthodox Faith in Slovakia and Subcarpathian Russia, which was then part of Czechoslovakia.

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In 1942 the Czech Resistance assassinated the Nazi governor Heydrich in Prague. The resistance fighters were allowed to hide in the crypt of Sts Cyril and Methodius Orthodox Cathedral. When Bishop Gorazd learned of this a few days later, he was greatly troubled, realising that if the occupying Germans found out, then the whole Czech Orthodox Church would suffer repression. Before leaving for Berlin to take part with the Metropolitan in consecrating Fr Philip (Gardner) 9 to the episcopate, he asked that the resistance fighters be moved elsewhere as soon as possible. However the Nazis found the Czech hiding-place and on 18 June 1942, seven of them were shot there. The two Cathedral priests and other Orthodox were arrested. Bishop Gorazd did not try to save himself, but wishing to avert repression of the Czech Church, took all responsibility on himself. He wrote three letters to the Germans with the words: 'I am giving myself up to the authorities and am prepared to face any punishment, including death'.

On the 27 June 1942 Bishop Gorazd was arrested and tortured. He was executed by firing squad on 4 September 1942. He was aged 63. The two Cathedral priests were also shot. The Orthodox Church in Bohemia and Moravia was forbidden to operate and its churches and chapels closed. Orthodox priests were exiled to forced labour camps in Germany. For his part Metropolitan Seraphim courageously refused to issue any statement condemning Bishop Gorazd.

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The martyred bishop was recognised as a New Martyr by decision of the Serbian Orthodox Church on 4/17 May 1961. On 24 August/ 6 September 1987 he was glorified in the Cathedral of St Gorazd in Olomouc in Moravia. He is feasted by the Czechoslovak Orthodox Church on the day of his martyrdom 22 August/ 4 September.

http://www.cnewa.org/ecc-orthodox-czech.htm

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On December 9, 1951, the Patriarchate of Moscow granted autocephalous status to the Orthodox Church of Czechoslovakia. The Patriarchate of Constantinople did not recognize Moscow’s authority to do this, and issued its own Tomos of autocephaly for this church on August 27, 1998.

The Czechoslovak Church created a new saint for the first time in September 1987 when it canonized Bishop Gorazd because of the central role he played in the formation of the Orthodox Church in that country and his martyrdom for the faith.

http://www.ekumenickarada.cz/erceng/pravosl.html

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After St. Cyril and Methodius, the first Bishop and their successor more than a thousand years later was the Czech and Moravian-Silesian Bishop Gorazd (Matìj Pavlík), who bore a symbolic name of one of their disciples. He was ordained in Belgrade (Serbia) on 25th September 1921. Under difficult circumstances in the period between the two wars, he succeeded in laying the foundations of the Orthodox Church in Bohemia, Moravia and also partly in Slovakia.

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By providing a shelter to Reichsprotector Heydrich´s assassins, which were later disclosed by Nazis, the church was struck a hard blow. On 4th September 1942 Bishop Gorazd, Vaclav Èikl, the senior of the cathedral church, Dr Vladimír Petøek, the priest, and Jan Sonnevend, the chair of the board of elders, were shot dead. Their families and many other people died in a fascist concentration camp, the Orthodox priests were sent to forced labour, the church was interdicted and its property confiscated.

The present Orthodox Church, which was restored after the World War II, is independent.

http://www.unicorne.org/orthodoxy/ar...ers/gorazd.htm

St Gorazd is the former Orthodox Bishop of Prague who was martyred by the Nazis during World War II.

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Bishop Gorazd was arrested and tried for treason against the Third Reich. He offered no defense of his actions and was executed by the Nazis.

http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute...rch_prague.htm

Archbishop Gorazd, in the world Matej Pavlik, was the leader of a group of Catholic priests and faithful, who became Orthodox after Czechoslovakia became an independent country after World War I. In 1921, Fr. Matej Pavlik was ordained a bishop, taking the name Gorazd, by a Serbian bishop in Belgrade. During World War II, Nazi troops executed Bishop Gorazd and many other Orthodox faithful in 1942.

http://www.czech.cz/index.php?section=1&menu=154

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These developments in the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia were, however, shaken by the events of the war years 1939 – 1945, which had the following consequences for the Orthodox Church: 1) after the break-up of Czechoslovakia a break down in the natural ties of both eparchies, 2) after the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia the breaking of ties with the Serbian patriarch (both eparchies were forced to submit to the Berlin Metropolitan during the war), 3) the martyrdom of Saint Gorazd and his companions after the patriotic support for the participants of the anti-Nazi resistance by paratroopers from England, who organised the assassination of the then Reichs protector Reinhard Heydrich and hid in the Orthodox church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Resslova street, 4) the subsequent persecution, carried out by the fascists, of the whole Czech Orthodox clergy and parts of the Church’s lay workers (256 priests and important Orthodox agents were executed, the others were deported for slave labour to Germany) and lastly, 5) the bureaucratic liquidation of the entire Czech Orthodox Church, the banning of its activities or its support, and the confiscation of its property (September 1942). In 1945 the life of the decimated Czech Orthodox Church’s eparchy was renewed in the liberated Czechoslovakia.

St. Gorazd II