Volodymyr Pryjma

Who was Volodymyr Pryjma?

Blessed Volodymyr Pryjma was a Ukrainian Greek Catholic choir director and martyr.

Pryjma was born on 17 July 1906 in the village of Stradch, Yavoriv District. He graduated from a school for cantors, which was at that time under the care of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, and then he was made the cantor and choir director in the local village church in Stradch. Prijma was married with two young children.

On 26 June, 1941 agents of the Soviet NKVD mercilessly tortured and murdered him along with Fr. Mykola Konrad, in a forest near Stradch as they were returning from the house of a sick woman who had requested the sacrament of reconciliation. His body had not been found until a week after the murder. He had been stabbed multiple times in the chest with a bayonet.

He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on June 27, 2001.