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St Maksim Sandovich was born in 1882 in the village of Żdynia in Carpatho-Russia. At present, this area is near the Polish–Ukrainian border, but it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at that time. From an early age, St Maksim showed extraordinary piety. When he was a schoolboy, he’d get up early in the morning to read his prayers and sing hymns. He wanted to become a monk or a priest, so, after he completed his schooling, he became a novice in one of the Uniate monasteries. However, in short order, the life there disappointed him, and, after three months, he went from there to the Pochaev Monastery, famous for its rigour, the spiritual life of its brotherhood, and its adherence to Orthodoxy. When Maksim was still a novice, Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky (1863-1936) of Kiev visited the monastery. He asked the abbot to release one of the novices to study in seminary, to ordain him to serve in Carpatho-Russia, where many Uniates had returned to Orthodoxy. The abbot chose to send Maksim. He left his dreams of a monastic life, and he followed Metropolitan Antony. After finishing seminary in Zhitomir, Maksim married a Byelorussian girl and accepted ordination to the priesthood in 1911. Metropolitan Anthony offered him the opportunity to stay with him in Kiev, but Fr Maksim refused, and he returned to his homeland.
He began his pastoral service in Grabe, near his native village. In this place, he celebrated Orthodox Liturgy for the first time after the Catholic rulers imposed the Unia on Carpatho-Russia in the 17th century. During a personal call on his relatives, the authorities arrested him and gave him a substantial fine and an eight-day gaol-sentence. Despite this, Fr Maksim continued to serve in neighbouring villages, which led to new measures against him and the Orthodox Christians who aided him in his mission. In March 1912, the Habsburg authorities imprisoned him in Lvov. Two years later, he was in court again, this time facing charges of spreading the Orthodox faith, the use of liturgical books in Church Slavonic, and collaboration with Russia, which opposed Austria-Hungary. On all the charges, the saint replied, “My only politics is the Holy Gospel“. Despite much perjury against him, abuse, isolation, and all kinds of suffering, in June 1914, the court acquitted St Maksim, along with his associates, so, they returned to their native places. However, in August 1914, upon the outbreak of the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian authorities arrested Fr Maksim again, along with his wife, who was pregnant, his father, and several Orthodox villagers. They put them in gaol in Gorlice. On 6 September 1914, without a trial before a judge, Fr Maksim received an extrajudicial death sentence. They dragged him from his cell and shot him in the prison yard, in front of all the arrested Orthodox. Falling to the ground, the Holy Hieromartyr of Christ said, “Long live Holy Orthodoxy!” Then, enraged, one of the executioners rushed at him and stabbed him with a dagger.
Only in 1922 were the remains of the saint transferred to his native village of Żdynia, where Orthodox believers buried him next to the church. Since then, many pilgrims went on otpust to his tomb. Holy Hieromartyr Maksim Sandovich’s veneration spread among Carpatho-Russian Orthodox, it persisted even after the Habsburg authorities deported many of them to the Talerhof concentration camp; St Maksim became a symbol of their national and religious identity. The Local Church of Warsaw and all Poland glorified St Maksim in 1994… the first saint glorified by this Local Church after its autocephaly in 1924. His memory isn’t included in the current edition of the Mineya of the Local Church of Moscow and all the Russias.
19 September 2012
Hieromonk Makarios of Simonopetra Monastery (Mount Athos)
Pravoslavie.ru
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/put/56146.htm
From Synaxarion: Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church, published by Sretensky Monastery in Moscow
Editor’s Note:
Let’s keep it simple. Freddie M-G, Dreher, Fathausen, and all the rest of the konvertsy cavalcade schmooze up to and pander to Uniates. I’d observe that the Uniates colluded in the murder of St Maksim and that they refuse to recognise him as a saint to this day. You can stand with the konvertsy indifferentists or you can stand with the REAL Church, which honours St Maksim. Any questions? Yet, they lecture us, and call us “nominal” and “lax”… I’ll retire to Bedlam with Mr Scrooge…
This Sunday is the closest Sunday to St Maksim’s feastday on the Orthodox calendar. Don’t forget him… and those who came after him, too. Unfortunately, the Uniate clergy and leadership were (and are) busy beavers in their service of the Pope of Rome… they continue their attacks on Christ’s Church and its true ministers and believers to this day. You must trust NOTHING from Uniate sources (such as the website Byzantine Texas)… either its outright lies or its “castrated truth”… truth with vital parts cut out. Caveat lector…
Nothing is forgotten… no one is forgotten. Lest we forget…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
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