Prince and Martyr: Msgr. Vladimir Ghika

The Romanian Orthodox prince who became a martyr of the Catholic faith.

When Prince Ghika was five years of age, his family moved to France after living two years in Moldavia. Some years afterwards, Prince Ghika felt the appeal of the spiritual life offered by a Church other than the Rumanian Orthodox. Although he was a descendent of Rumanian royalty, Prince Ghika became a Catholic. When he did so, it unleashed a veritable tempest. Princess Alexsandrine, his mother, considered it a calamity. The newspapers treated him as a renegade, as if he had committed a crime. He meekly accepted this criticism and continued to deepen his faith in God, which prepared him for his vocation to the priesthood and, much later, his embrace of martyrdom. As a Catholic, the prince loved Rumanian Orthodoxy; he respected it. That is why he often said, "I became a Catholic in order to become a better Orthodox." (Read entire post.)

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