Vincentas Borisevičius

1887–1946 ✕ Executed

Catholic bishop of Telšiai in Lithuania, executed in 1946 on charges that included supporting the partisans

Born to a family of well-off Lithuanian farmers, he studied in Saint Petersburg, at the Sejny Priest Seminary and at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. In the First World War he was a chaplain in the Russian Imperial Army, and from 1927 he was rector of the Telšiai priest seminary until the Soviet occupation closed it in 1940. He became bishop of Telšiai in 1943 and refused to retreat to the West in 1944. Accused of anti-Soviet activities including support for the partisans, he was arrested by the NKVD in December 1945 and again in February 1946, and refused an offer of a pardon in exchange for cooperation. Sentenced to death for treason on 28 August 1946, he is believed to have been executed on 18 November and was buried in a mass grave at Tuskulėnai Manor in Vilnius. At his trial three Jews testified that he had helped Jews hide. His beatification process began in 1990.