Saints Bogolyub, Matej (Matthew), and Teofan (Theophan) of Chisholm

Saint Bogolyub (Gakovich) Righteous Priest and Missionary to America, and Hieromartyr

St. Bogolyub Gakovich came to the United States in 1928 and then to the Iron Range in 1932. He and his wife, Kseniya, had three boys. Along with the parishes on the Iron Range he served in Steelton, Chicago, and Kansas City. During the Depression, he worked very hard to activate church life among the Orthodox on the Range. He returned to Plashki in Lika, Yugoslavia, in 1935. In June of 1941, he was arrested by the Nazis, and with his bishop and others was confined to a barn for a month. After a month of suffering, he was taken to Gospich prison, then to Yadovno Camp. There they tied his hands and tied his arms to another person and one of them was shot in head and pushed into the deep pits dragging the other person down to die either of the drop or dehydration/starvation.

Saint Matej (Stiyachich) Righteous Priest and Missionary to America, and Hieromartyr

St. Matej Stiyachich was born on Dec 11.1883 in Klobuk, Herzegovina. He lived in Chisholm at the end of the Roaring 20s. He was a married priest with several children. He also served in other parishes in the United States before and after living on the Range. Due to the Depression, priests moved more regularly from parish to parish much like everyone else moved to find work. He returned to the village of Smiljan, Lika, Croatia is where Tesla’s father served and where Matej returned to in 1935. Smiljan didn’t have a priest for long time and that Tesla himself encouraged Matej to go and serve in Smiljan to the parish where Nikola Tesla, the great Serbian American Inventor and starter of the modern technological world. Both St. Matej and Fr. Peter Stijacic were friends with Nikola Tesla. (Interestingly, Tesla’s father, Milutin, had been the Orthodox parish priest in Smilyan many years before).

Fr. Matej was arrested in 1941 by the Nazis who had by this time invaded a large portion of Yugoslavia. He was arrested for merely being a Serbian Orthodox priest. He was taken by the Nazis to the notorious Gospich Prison Camp where he endured daily beatings from the guards under interrogation. As witnesses stated he was barely moving after those beatings. After a period of time he was taken to the Velebit Mountains to the Concentration Camp Yadovno where he was killed and his body thrown into a deep stone pit in the mountains. A person could not climb out of such a deep pit without a rope being lowered. It was only after the fall of Communist Yugoslavia in 1991 that excavations of these pits were permitted.

Saint Teofan (Beatovich) Missionary in Minnesota and Hieromartyr

St. Teofan Beatovich was a priest monk who lived the longest out of the three in Northern Minnesota. He lived in Chisholm, Minneapolis. He worked for the Red Cross in Minneapolis for about 20 years. In 1939, he left Northern Minnesota for Montenegro, Yugoslavia, for unknown reasons. In Yugoslavia, St. Teofan joined a monastery in the remote location of Kosiyerevo. On Christmas eve in 1942, communist partisans, in their militant atheism, stormed this peaceful monastery with weapons drawn and dragged St. Teofan out of the monastery. They killed him and threw his body into a deep pit by the town of Vidno. His body was never recovered and the later communist government of Yugoslavia banned any excavation. 

These Three New Hieromartyrs Were Glorified By The Orthodox Church In 2004

Icon by: Popadija Xenia Franck