Blessed Bishop Nikolas Charnetsky (June, 27) Bishop Charnetsky was a Redemptorist monk. He was arrested along with all the bishops of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in 1945. Between his arrest and his release eleven years later, Bishop Charnetsky was moved around a number of prisons. It was reported that, during all this time, he maintained a dignified, gentle and calming presence in spite of enduring over 600 hours of interrogation, which included torture. By 1956, the bishop’s health was in such a dismal state that the prison authorities decided to release him in order that he die elsewhere. However, he made enough of a surprising partial recovery that he was able to pastor the Ukrainian Catholic community, which was then operating clandestinely. Although he lived under constant surveillance, one of his most important acts was to secretly prepare and ordain young men called to the Priesthood. On 2 April 1959 Bishop Charnetsky died and was buried in Lviv two days later. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II during his pastoral visit to Ukraine on 27 June 2001. On the Photo, Bishop Charnetsky sits in center, in the first row.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 15:22:17 +0000
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