After the Saint's Martyrdom
After the execution, the place where Saint Maximus was executed was gleefully pointed out by the Polish intelligentsia in Gorlice. They would point to the bullet holes and laugh, saying: "That's where they shot the schismatic priest!"
Saint Maximus' wife was at first released, and then re-arrested. They first imprisoned her in the village of Rzhepnika, and then again in Gorlice. From Gorlice they took her to the terrible Talerhoff concentration camp. There, amid horrible sufferings and hunger, she gave birth to a son, to whom she gave his father's name, Maximus, when he was baptized. Mother and son survived the horrific conditions of Talerhoff, and then returned to Zhdynia. She and her son eventually found a home in Subcarpathian-Rus'. In time, Maximus Sandovich, the son of the martyr, was graduated from the theological school in Warsaw, married, and was ordained to the Orthodox priesthood. Prior to World War II he was pastor in the village of Banitsia, in Lemkovina.
In 1922, Timko Sandovich obtained official permission from the authorities of the new Polish Republic to disinter the holy relics of his martyred son and transfer them to the cemetery in Zhdynia where his ancestors were buried. After considerable effort on the part of the gravediggers, the coffin of Saint Maximus was located. The ground was so boggy that little was left but bones, yet Timko was able to recognize the leather boots the martyr had bought just two days before his execution.
There was no Orthodox priest to conduct services at the reinterment of Saint Maximus' relics; though it is unlikely that the Uniat priest Durkot would have permitted them to perform any such service. In the end, Timko Sandovich buried his son with his own hands. Within a year, a handsome marble monument was placed over the saint's grave, bearing the inscription: "This monument was erected by American Orthodox Rus' over the grave of the martyr. Father Maximus Sandovich, who died on August 6th, 1914".
Through the years, the memory of the heroic sacrifice of the holy hieromartyr Maximus Sandovich was cherished in the hearts of the Lemko people for whom he gave his life. Decades passed, and finally the Church of Poland resolved to enroll his name among those of the other saints of our Holy Church. A magnificent new church was built in Gorlice to house a shrine for his relics. And on September 6th, 1994 (according to the papal calendar; 24 August according to the Orthodox Church Calendar), the formal glorification of the holy hieromartyr Maximus took place in that town. Orthodox faithful from all over the world attended the solemnities. A shrine has been designed to house the relics of the new-hieromartyr, and the grave of the saint will be opened again when the church and shrine are ready to receive them.
The Church of Poland published a troparion and kontakion to the saint, and hymnographers of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Old Calendar Church of Bulgaria have labored together to produce a full service for the use of the faithful.
 | A memorial to Saint Maximus
at the wall where he was shot.
|
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Principal Source:
Father Maximus Sandovich, Protomartyr for Orthodoxy in Lemkovina, by V. P. Hladik (Philadelphia: "Pravda Press", 1942), pages 4-39.
Additional Sources:
Historical Truth, by Symeon Vityazevsky (Wilkes-Barre: Svit Press, 1938), pages 79-82.
Terezin and Talerhof, by V. R. Vavrik (pub. Archpriest R. N. Samilo, 1966), pages 20-24.
"The Liturgical Service in Honor of the Holy New-Hieromartyr Maximus Sandovich, Protomartyr of the Lemko People" pages 17-48 make up the rest of this publication.
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Document Information
Document URL: http://lemko.org/religion/maxim/5.html
Original page design and layout by Walter Maksimovich
E-mail: walter@lemko.org
Originally Composed: April 7th, 1997
Date last modified: January 31st, 2002