Nicholas Charnetsky

Blessed Nicholas Charnetsky
martyr
Born	1884
Died	1959
Honored in	Roman Catholic Church

Blessed Nicholas (Ukrainian: Mykolay) Charnetsky (1884–1959) was a member of the Redemptorists (Congregation of the Holy Redeemer), a religious congregation in the Latin Rite branch of the Catholic Church; he is considered to be a martyr by the Church.

Family Background

Mykolay Charnetsky was born in a hamlet near Horodenka in western Ukraine, on 14 December 1884. Like many others of that time and place, he came from a large family and was the eldest of nine children. Alexander and Parasceva Charnetsky and their children were devout members of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church which is in communion with the Bishop of Rome and is distinct from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Ukrainian seminary and priesthood

From a young age, Mykolay had expressed a desire to become a priest and when he was 18 years of age, the Ukrainian Catholic Bishop Hryhory Khomyshyn (who was himself to be martryed) sent him to study at the Ukrainian College in Rome. After his ordination to the Catholic priesthood in 1909, Father Mykolay returned from Ukraine to Rome so that he might complete a Doctorate in Theology, which he did the following year.

Upon completion of his doctorate, Father Mykolay returned to his homeland in order to teach Dogmatic theology and philosophy at the Ukrainian Catholic seminary in Ivano-Frankivsk (then called Stanislaviv) where he remained for the next nine years, also serving as spiritual director to any student who wished.^[1]

Ministry as a Redemptorist

For some time, Father Mykolay 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 Father Ivan Ziatyk who was to follow him some years later, Father Mykolay entered the novitiate in 1919.

As he was already an ordained priest, after his first profession in 1920, Father Mykolay 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.^[2]

However, in 1926 the congregation opened a mission in the Volhynia region of northern Ukraine, the main purpose of which was to promote a better relationship between Catholic and Orthodox Ukrainians. As Father Mykolay had been ordained in the Ukrainian Catholic Rite, he was well acquainted with the Liturgy and Christian spirituality as lived by those of the Orthodox churches and this gained him much respect amongst their people and clergy.^[3] His devotion to the people together with his tireless efforts at fostering Orthodox-Catholic relations caused Pope Pius XII to name him as Titular bishop of Lebed and Apostolic visitor to Ukrainian Catholics in the Volhynia region as well as those in Podlaskie (Ukr: Pidlashia) in southern Poland.

Soviet invasion and imprisonment

In1939 Soviet armed forces invaded western Ukraine, causing the Redemptorists to flee to Lviv where here worked as a labourer in order to make a living. Two years later, Bishop Mykolay took up a professorship at Lviv Theological Academy (now the Ukrainian Catholic University) which was revived in 1941.

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 Orthodox Church. During his time in prison Bishop Mykolay endured frequent violent interrogations. He was found guilty of collaborating with the Nazis when they occupied Poland as well as being an agent of a foreign power i.e. the Vatican; as a result he was sentenced to hard labour.

Initially, one of his prison compatriots was the famous Cardinal Josyf Slipyj when both were imprisoned in Mariinsk, southern Siberia. Between his arrest in1945 and his release eleven years later, Bishop Mykolay 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.^[4]

Release and death

By 1956, the bishop’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. ^[5] 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 Mykolay 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.^[6] On the 23rd of April 2001 bishop Charnetskyi's martyrdom was verified by the assembly of Cardinals.^[7] He was beatified by Pope John Paul II during his pastoral visit to Ukraine on 27 June 2001. This date was significant as it is the feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the patroness of the Redemptorists.

References

1. ^ Canadian Redemptorist website: our saints
2. ^ Ukrainian Redemptorist Yorktown website: Blessed Nicholas
3. ^ Redemptorist Generalate website: Charnestskyi
4. ^ Canadian Redemptorist website: Charnestsky
5. ^ Redemptorist Generalate website: Charnestskyi
6. ^ Canadian Redemptorist website: Charnestsky
7. ^ http://www.cssr.com/english/saintsblessed/charnetskyi.shtml

Persondata
Name	Charnetskyi, Nicholas
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1884
Place of birth
Date of death	1959
Place of death