The Forty-two Martyrs of Momišići were two priest-teachers and their forty students who were killed at the Church of St. George in Momišići, a settlement near Podgorica in present-day Montenegro, in 1688 during the period of Ottoman rule. They are commemorated together as a single group of new martyrs in the Serbian Orthodox calendar, with a feast on March 9.
According to the surviving account, the two priests served as religious-education teachers, and their forty students were children of the parish gathered for instruction. The whole company of forty-two was confined in the church and burned alive. The killing is recorded as an act of retaliation by the army of Sulejman-Pasha of Skadar for losses the Ottomans had suffered from the surrounding hill tribes, particularly from Kuča, in the preceding months.
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The martyrdom of 1688
The martyrs were seized at the Church of St. George in Momišići, where the students had gathered with their two priest-teachers. The sources record that the students came mostly from the local Popović brotherhood. When the captives would not renounce their faith, the soldiers shut all forty-two inside the church and set it alight, so that priests and students died together.
The event is described as a punitive measure during Ottoman rule over the region, carried out by the forces of Sulejman-Pasha of Skadar in reprisal for resistance offered by the hill tribes of the area.
Relics and veneration
After the massacre the remains of the martyrs were gathered and buried beneath the altar table of the Church of St. George, where they rested throughout the remainder of Ottoman rule. In 1936 the relics were transferred with a procession to the renovated Church of St. George in Momišići and again placed beneath the holy altar table.
In 2006 the relics were brought out for veneration on the feast of the Holy Forty Martyrs of Sebaste and afterward placed in a reliquary on the left side of the church's iconostasis.
Canonization
The two priest-martyrs and forty student-martyrs were canonized by the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church in May 2012. The formal declaration of their sainthood was made at a hierarchical Divine Liturgy at the Memorial Church of St. Sava on Vračar in Belgrade on May 19, 2012, led by Patriarch Irinej of Serbia. Their feast is kept on March 9, the same day as the Holy Martyrs of Sebaste.
Their companions & kin
Commemorated on the same day, March 9; the relics of the Momišići martyrs are venerated in connection with their feast.
Forty Martyrs of Sebaste
Notes
Reposed 1688, Momišići (Montenegro). One commemoration of a named group.
