Petro Oros
Petro Pavlo Oros was a Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo hierarch after the Church was suppressed by the communist regime. He was an auxiliary bishop of the Ruthenian Catholic Eparchy of Mukacheve from 1944 to 1953, when he was murdered by an anti-faith police officer.
He is a martyr of the Catholic Church. His beatification was approved in August 2022, and after several delays he was beatified in September 2025.
Early life
Born in Biri, Austria-Hungary Empire in 1917 in the family of a Greek-Catholic priest. His father died when Petro was 2 years old and his mother died when he was age 9. He studied for the Holy Priesthood in the Theological Seminary of Uzhhorod from 1937 to 1942 and was ordained a priest on 26 June 1942 for the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo. Oros served a number of villages in the Eparchy of Mukachevo as the parish vice-priest. On 19 December 1944 he was clandestinely consecrated to the Episcopate as auxiliary bishop. The principal and single consecrator was blessed bishop Theodore Romzha.In 1944 the region of Transcarpathia was captured by the Red Army and annexed to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Soviet government began suppressing the Greek-Catholics, pressuring them to become Eastern Orthodox, but Oros resisted and remained faithful to the pope. In 1949, after the church was ordered to close by the government, Oros continued to serve the local community in the Irshava raion clandestinely. He was shot by a communist police officer in, Irshava raion, Zakarpattia Oblast after celebration of the Divine Liturgy on 27 August 1953.