Nicholas Charnetsky

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Blessed

Nicholas Charnetsky
Bishop Nicholas Charnetsky
Bishop and Martyr
BornDecember 14, 1884
Semakivtsi, Kolomyia Raion, Ukraine
DiedApril 2, 1959
Ukraine
Venerated inCatholic Church
Beatified27 June 2001, Ukraine by Pope John Paul II
Feast2 April

Nicholas Charnetsky,[1] Mykolai Charnetskyi[2] or Mykolay Charnetsky[3] (Ukrainian: Миколай Чарнецький; December 14, 1884 – April 2, 1959) was a member of the Redemptorists (Congregation of the Holy Redeemer), a religious congregation in the Byzantine Rite of the Catholic Church; he is considered a martyr by the church.

Family background

Mykolai Charnetskyi was born in the village of Semakivtsia, a hamlet in

Bishop of Rome and is distinct from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
.

Ukrainian seminary and priesthood

From a young age, Charnetsky had expressed a desire to become a priest and when he was 18 years of age, the Ukrainian Catholic Bishop

Catholic priesthood in 1909, Charnetsky returned from Ukraine to Rome so that he might complete a Doctorate in Theology, which he did the following year.[1]

Upon completion of his doctorate, Charnetsky returned to his homeland in order to teach

spiritual director to any student who wished.[4]

Ministry as a Redemptorist

For some time, Charnetsky had desired to live a more austere life than that of a seminary professor. In 1913 the Belgian province of the Redemptorists had established a mission in Ukraine and this included a novitiate near Lviv for those interested in joining the congregation. Like Ivan Ziatyk who was to follow him some years later, Charnetsky entered the novitiate in 1919.[5]

As he was already an

ordained priest, after his first profession in 1920, Charnetsky immediately began working in a nearby parish before being sent to teach at the minor seminary (for students in their teens) run by the Redemptorists.[1]

However, in 1926 the congregation opened a mission in the

Podlaskie (Ukr: Pidlashia) in southern Poland. He was ordained to the episcopacy by Bishop Gregory Khomyshyn in Rome on February 2, 1931.[7][8] From 1931 to 1939, he ministered to the people of Volyn, Polisia, Pidliasia, and Belorussia.[5]

Charnetsky was invited by Irish

Redemptorists to the 1932 Eucharistic Congress. He lodged for a fortnight in the guest-house of the Redemptoristine monastery on Saint Alphonsus Road and offered the Divine Liturgy in the monastery church each morning. On the second day of the Eucharistic Congress, Charnetsky celebrated a Pontifical Divine Liturgy for all the Congress participants in the Jesuit Church on Gardiner Street; an icon-screen with hand-painted icons was especially made and installed for this purpose; it is not known what became of the screen. A choir directed by Paul Mailleux (later Rector of the Pontifical Russian College in Rome) sang the Pontifical Liturgy in Church-Slavonic. Fulton J. Sheen
of the United States was among the participating clergy.

After the Eucharistic Congress, Charnetsky remained in Ireland for several weeks, visiting various Redemptorist churches and schools. He then went back to Poland. Unfortunately, Charnetsky never had an opportunity to return to Ireland; World War II and the Soviet persecution of the church severely restricted his activity.

Soviet invasion and imprisonment

In 1939 Soviet armed forces invaded western Ukraine, causing the Redemptorists to flee to Lviv. Two years later, Charnetsky took up a professorship at Lviv Theological Academy[5] (now the Ukrainian Catholic University) which was revived in 1941, after Nazi Germany occupied the city.

In 1944 the Soviets invaded for a second time and the following year all the Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishops were placed under arrest as part of the Soviet plan to suppress the church and transfer its property to the state-sanctioned Russian Orthodox Church.[

hard labour
.

Initially, one of his prison compatriots was the noted Cardinal Josyf Slipyj when both were imprisoned in Mariinsk, southern Siberia. Between his arrest in 1945 and his release eleven years later, Charnetsky was moved around to about thirty a 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.[4]

Release and death

By 1956, Charnetsky's health was in such a dismal state that a shroud had already been prepared; the prison authorities then decided to release him in order that he die elsewhere. [9] 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 Charnetsky died and was buried in Lviv two days later. Due to many regarding him as a saint, people began visit his grave and to ask for his heavenly intercession immediately. Today people continue to claim that miracles happen through his intercession.[4] On 23 April 2001 Charnetsky's martyrdom was verified by the assembly of Cardinals.

patroness
of the Redemptorists.

Testimony of Vasyl Voronovskyi

“I saw him. He was a very humble person. The first time I came for instruction from the bishop, he was sweeping the house. I wanted to help him, to take the broom, but he didn’t let me. He himself swept. ‘Have a seat,’ he said. I was embarrassed that the bishop was sweeping, but I was sitting, because he wouldn’t let me. He told how many priests who had signed over to Orthodoxy, came to him to confess nearly 300 priests, they repented and came to him.” – From an interview with Father Vasyl Voronovskyi.[7][8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Blessed Nicholas Charnetsky C.Ss.R., Yorkton Redemptorists". Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 14 September 2014.
  2. ^ ROMANIZATION OF UKRAINIAN. BGN/PCGN 2019 Agreement.
  3. ^ Blessed Mykolay Charnetsky.
  4. ^ a b c "Arrigo C.Ss.R., Santo. "Mykola (Nicolas) Carneckyj", Redemptorists (Canada)". Retrieved 14 September 2014.
  5. ^ a b c d "Blessed Nicholas and Companions CSsR., The Redemptorists of the London Province". Retrieved 14 September 2014.
  6. ^ "Redemption Generalate website: Charnestskyi". Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 14 September 2014.
  7. ^
    ISBN 9665613456
    .
  8. ^ a b c "Faith Amid Hopelessness". The New Martyrs of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church. Saskatoon: Saints Peter & Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church.
  9. ^ "Redemptorist Generalate website: Charnestskyi". Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 14 September 2014.
  10. ^ "Redemptorist". Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 14 September 2014.
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