St. Alexis Medvedkov, archpriest of Ugine (1934), Elias Fondaminskii (1942), Priest Demetrius Klepinine (1944), George Skobtsov (1944), and Nun Maria (Skobtsova) (1945), of Paris
Commemorated on July 20
Mother Maria was born in Latvia in 1891. Like many of the
pre-Revolutionary Russian intelligenstia, she was an atheist and a political
radical in her youth, but gradually came to accept the truths of the Faith.
After the Revolution, she became part of the large Russian emigre population of
Paris. There she was tonsured as a nun by Metropolitan Evlogy, and devoted
herself to a life of service to the poor. With a small community of
fellow-believers, she established 'houses of hospitality' for the poor, the
homeless, the alcoholic, and visited Russian emigres in mental hospitals. In
1939 Metropolitan Evlogy sent the young priest Fr Dimitry to serve Mother
Maria's community; he proved to be a partner, committed even unto death, in the
community's work among the poor. When the Nazis took Paris in 1940, Mother
Maria, Fr Dimitry, and others of the community chose to remain in the city to
care for those who had come to count on them. As Nazi persecution of Jews in
France increased, the Orthodox community's work naturally expanded to include
protection and care of these most helpless ones. Father Dimitri was asked to
provide forged certificates of baptism to preserve the lives of Jews, and always
complied. Eventually, this work led to the arrest of Mother Maria, Fr Dimitri,
and their associates. A fragment survives of the Gestapo's interrogation of Fr
Dimitri:
Hoffman: If we release you, will you give your word
never again to aid Jews?
Klepinin: I can say no such thing. I am a Christian
and must act as I must. (Hoffman struck Klepinin across the face.)
Hoffman: Jew lover! How dare you talk of helping those
swine as being a Christian duty! (Klepinin, recovering his balance, held up the
cross from his cassock.)
Klepinin: Do you know this Jew? (For this, Father
Dimitri was knocked to the floor.)
"Your priest did himself in," Hoffman said afterward to Sophia Pilenko. "He
insists that if he were to be freed, he would act exactly as before."
Mother Maria, Fr Dimitri, and several of their colleages, were sent to the
Nazi concentration camps (Mother Maria to Ravensbruck, Fr Dimitri to Buchenwald)
where, after great sufferings, they perished. It is believed that Mother Maria's
last act was to take the place of a Jew being sent to death, voluntarily dying
in his place.
A full account of their life and death is given on the site of the
Orthodox Peace Fellowship.
Mother Maria and her companions were glorified by the Patriarchate of
Constantinople in 2004.