Marija Berchmana Leidenix

Blessed Marija Berchmana Leidenix was an Austrian religious sister of the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Charity and one of the five women later venerated as the Martyrs of Drina. She was born Maria Leidenix on 28 November 1865 in Oberdorf in Carinthia, then part of the Austrian Empire. In adulthood she entered the congregation founded in Vienna by Franziska Lechner, taking the religious name Maria Berchmana. The Daughters of Divine Charity were devoted to education, care of the poor, and other works of charity, and they established houses across the Austro-Hungarian lands, including Bosnia.

By the early twentieth century Sister Berchmana had been assigned to the community at Pale, in the mountains east of Sarajevo. She remained there for many years, serving in the convent’s school and charitable works. In April 1941 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded and partitioned. Bosnia was incorporated into the Independent State of Croatia. The district around Pale and Goražde became a zone of fighting among Ustaše militia, Chetnik irregulars, communist Partisans, and occupying forces. In December 1941 Chetnik units moved against Pale.

The five sisters of the Pale convent—Jula Ivanišević, Berchmana Leidenix, Krizina Bojanc, Antonija Fabjan, and Bernadeta Banja—were forced to abandon their house and were taken into custody. Four of the nuns were killed during the night of 15–16 December 1941 near Goražde and their bodies were thrown into the Drina River. Sister Berchmana, then seventy-six years old and in frail health, was separated from her companions and held in the village of Sjetlina. She was killed there on 23 December 1941.

The five women became known in Catholic tradition as the Martyrs of Drina (Drinske mučenice). After the war the circumstances of their deaths, regarded as martyrdom in hatred of the faith, led to a cause for beatification. On 24 September 2011 they were beatified together in Sarajevo. Cardinal Angelo Amato, representing Pope Benedict XVI, presided. The liturgical memorial of the group is kept on 15 December. Sister Marija Berchmana Leidenix is venerated as a blessed of the Catholic Church and has not been canonized.