Blessed Basil was born in 1903.  He entered the seminary in 1920, and after his ordination to the diaconate he joined the Redemptorists.  Ordained a priest in 1925 he spent more than twenty years working as a missioner.  He was arrested on 11th April 1945 and sentenced to death, later commuted to ten years imprisonment and forced labour.  Freed in 1955 he resumed his pastoral work in secret.  In 1963 Metropolitan Joseph Slipyj ordained him a bishop.  He was again arrested in 1969 and condemned to three more years in prison.  On his release the soviet authorities would not allow him to return to Lviv.  After a brief stay in Yugoslavia he made his way to Rome, where he was received by Pope Paul VI.  In June 1972 he travelled to Canada, and there died on 30th June 1973, as a result of a slow-acting poison given him prior to his departure for Yugoslavia.

Blessed Francis was born in Germany in 1819.  He join the Redemptorists, entering the noviciate in America, he was professed in 1843 and ordained a priest in December 1844.  He began his pastoral ministry in Pittsburgh as assistant pastor to St. John Neumann.  Then became a full-time itinerant missionary preacher, preaching in English and German.  In September 1866 he became pastor of St. Mary’s church in the Irish quarter of New Orleans and thirteen months later he died during a yellow fever epidemic, a martyr to charity in caring for the sick.  He was only 48 years old.