Pavel Peter Gojdič

Pavel Peter Gojdič (also known as Pavol Gojdič or Peter Gojdič; 17 July 1888 — 17 July 1960), was a Rusyn Basilian monk and the eparch of the Slovak Greek Catholic Eparchy of Prešov. Following the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, he was arrested by the StB, the secret police of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, and imprisoned on charges of high treason. Despite promises of immediate release if he would agree to become patriarch of the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia, Gojdič died at Leopoldov Prison as a prisoner of conscience in 1960. Following the 1989 Velvet Revolution, Gojdič was posthumously honoured by post-communist Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel and beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2001. For his role in saving 1500 Jewish lives during the Holocaust in Slovakia, Bishop Gojdič was posthumously honoured as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 2007. Provided by Wikipedia