On this day Mother Maria Skobtsova was martyred by the Nazis in Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Mother Maria was born to an aristocratic family in Latvia and fled to Paris during the Russian Revolution, eventually taking on the ascetic life of a nun. She made a rented house in Paris her “convent”. It was a place with an open door for refugees, the needy, and the lonely. It also soon became a center for intellectual and theological discussion. In Mother Maria, these two elements — service to the poor and theological discourse— went hand-in-hand.
After the Fall of France in 1940, Jews began approaching the house asking for baptismal certificates, which a local priest, Father Dimitri Klepinin, would provide them. Many Jews came to stay with them. They provided shelter and helped many to flee the country. Eventually, the house was closed down. Mother Maria, Fr. Dimitri, her mother, and her son, Yuri were all arrested by the Gestapo. Fr. Dimitri and Yuri both died at the Dora concentration camp.
Mother Maria was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. On Holy Saturday, 1945, she was sent to the gas chamber.
The Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate declared Mother Maria, together with Fr. Dimitri and Yuri, saints of the church in 2004.
In 2019, Anberin Pasha of Hellenic College Holy Cross produced “Love to the End”— a 45-minute documentary film that rediscovers the life of Mother Maria of Paris.