Pavol Gojdič, also known as Pavel Peter Gojdič or Peter Gojdič (July 17, 1888 — July 17, 1960), was a Basilian monk

Order of Saint Basil the Great

The Order of St. Basil the Great also known as the Basilian Order of Saint Josaphat is an monastic religious order of the Greek Catholic Churches that is present in many countries and that has its Mother House in Rome. The order received approbation on August 20, 1631...

 and the bishop of the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Prešov

Archeparchy of Prešov

The Archeparchy of Prešov is an archeparchy of the Slovak Greek Catholic Church which covers the territory of the Prešov Region. It has the suffragans of: Eparchy of Košice and Eparchy of Bratislava. As of 2004 it had 136,593 Greek Catholic faithful. and its seat is in Prešov.-History:The eparchy...

 martyred by the communist regime in Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

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On April 28, 1950, the Communist state outlawed the Greek Catholic Church and Bishop Pavol was incarcerated. In January 1951 he was convicted on trumped-up charges of treason. Abused in multiple prisons, he remained faithful, praying and saying Mass

Mass

Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...

 in secret. He was eventually given the offer to be released on the condition that he assume the position of the patriarch

Patriarch

Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...

 of the Czechoslovak Orthodox Church

Czech and Slovak Orthodox Church

The Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia is a self-governing body of the Eastern Orthodox Church that territorially covers the countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia...

. He rejected the offer as an infidelity to the Pope and the faithful. He continued to be inprisoned and to suffer mistreatment, dying in a prison hospital on his birthday in 1960.

He was officially honored by the Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....

 Holocaust Memorial in 2008 as one of the Righteous Among the Nations

Righteous Among the Nations

Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....

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