Years ago when Scott was working with Catholic Christian Outreach, we travelled to Manitoba for the New Year’s conference. On one of the nights there, an announcement was made that the bus to St. Joseph’s Ukrainian Catholic Church would be leaving soon. We hadn’t planned on attending and wouldn’t have gone if there had been something else for us to do, but we got on the bus and headed for the church.
That visit left such an impression on us that we still talk about it to this day. First, I was struck by the building itself. It was amazingly beautiful. A priest came to meet us and gave us a tour. Every single beam, every tile on the floor, was intentionally placed to direct your steps or your eyes toward something theological. An icon of the Resurrection, surrounded by so many others, showed Our Lord pulling Adam and Eve out of the grave. I had never seen anything like this.
While I guessed that many Catholics who attended the Byzantine Rite perhaps took the beauty and symbolism for granted, as Roman Rite Catholics often do their own imagery, I couldn’t help thinking that if every parish tried to make its spaces sacred, set apart from worldliness and truly beautiful, more people would experience God’s voice in a different way.
The most memorable part of the tour was visiting the crypt of Blessed Vasyl Velychkovsky, CSsR.
Velychkovsky was born in Ukraine in 1903 and lived under atheistic communism in the Soviet Union. He was homeschooled, became a priest, and was known for his gift for preaching. As a Catholic Ukrainian, he managed to break down barriers with the Ukrainian Orthodox faithful. Many converted after being served by him, and they loved him deeply.
When the Soviets occupied Stanislaviv during the Second World War, Velychkovsky organized a procession of 20,000 people through the streets and, of course, was arrested for his mischief. When the soldiers saw that the people loved him to the point of being willing to shed their blood for him, he was released but soon, and more quietly, arrested again.
He was tortured and then promised freedom and safety if he would deny his faith and join the Russian Orthodox Church (ruled by the communist government). “No, never,” was his reply, “you can shoot me and kill me, but you will not get any other answer.”
For a year he was interrogated and tortured in the KGB prison. He was on death row but, unafraid of death, spent his time ministering to the people with him. We were told that he used his bread to make beads and then thread from his clothing to make rosaries for the prisoners. For some providential reason, his death sentence was changed and he was sent to the coal mines for 10 years.
When he was eventually released, he took up right where he had left off, in faithful dissidence, and became a priest of the underground Church. Somehow he was allowed to leave the country to attend the Second Vatican Council, where he had a secret meeting in a hotel room and was quickly ordained a bishop.
Upon returning home he was arrested again and underwent chemical, physical, and mental torture. Near death from the chemical poisoning, he was released and exiled to Canada, where he died. He is one of many to die in the “century of martyrs” and is, appropriately, now more than ever, considered a Canadian patron.
When his body was exhumed, he was found to be incorrupt, except for his toes, which had been destroyed from frostbite in the concentration camps.
I can remember feeling such an awe and reverence as I stood at the tomb of this man who defied the powers of the world for truth. He thought nothing of his own death, as his vocation required fearlessness, serving the people he had vowed to lead in holiness. He loved his people, and he loved the people who were not quite yet his own. His disobedience to the communist powers was a natural consequence of his obedience to God. He was fearless. And now is in glory because of it.
Blessed Vasyl Velychkovsky, pray for the people of the Ukraine, the people of Russia, all priests, and those people in our own nation who fear neither God nor the loss of freedom.
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