Pavel Bliznetsov

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Father Pavel Bliznetsov (26 September 1913 – 24 September 1989) was a Russian Eastern Catholic priest. He was born in Tambov, in the Russian Empire, and raised in the Orthodox faith. As a young man he lost his faith and became an atheist. He studied as an engineer and trained as a military pilot. In World War II he served in the Red Army and was captured in 1942, then held in a German concentration camp. After escaping, he went to Rome, where he met Philippe de Regis and converted to Catholicism. In 1951, after finishing his studies at the Russicum, he was ordained a priest of the Byzantine rite. He served in Fatima and in Germany, where he founded a pastoral center in Gundelfingen (near Freiburg). He died in Gundelfingen on 24 September 1989. He wrote under the pen name P. Didymus, with works published in Brussels in the early 1950s.