Historical and religious background King
Sigismund III Vasa's policy for the
Counter-Reformation in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was to reunite, "through missions to non-Catholics, both Protestant and Orthodox," all Christians into the
Catholic Church. After preliminary negotiations with Sigismund III and with
Grand Chancellor and
Great Hetman of the Crown Jan Zamoyski, a delegation of bishops from the Eastern Orthodox was sent to Rome in 1595 to accede to the
Union of Brest on condition that their rituals and discipline were left intact. The Union resulted in two sectarian groups: • Ruthenian Orthodox Christians who accepted the Union of Brest became
Eastern Catholics and were known as "
Uniates", Eastern Catholic Ruthenians were detested, and considered "schismatics and traitors" by those who remained Orthodox and under the
Ecumenical Patriarchate. "About two-thirds of the Ruthenian population", however, had become Greek-Catholics by 1620. • Eastern Orthodox adherents who did not assent to the Union of Brest articles remained Eastern Orthodox and were known as "", or "
()"; they were also called "dissidents" by both Roman and Byzantine Catholics. According the Beatification testimony of his fellow monks, Brother Josaphat regularly prayed while disciplining himself, "Lord, God, grant unity to the Holy Church and the conversion of the Dissidents." Stories that the young monk was a Greek Catholic
Starets spread rapidly and many distinguished people began to visit the Monastery to speak with him for
Spiritual direction. Many other young men joined the Monastery, which only recently had been on the verge of closure, due to Brother Josaphat's reputation for holiness. Brother Josaphat believed, based on his own studies of history, the liturgical books, and many other sources, that the
Union of Brest represented a return to the true roots and origins of the Christian East. He was so successful at arguing in favor of this point and persuading both Orthodox Christians and Ruthenian and Lithuanian
Calvinists to convert to Eastern Catholicism, that his theological opponents dubbed him, "The soul-snatcher". During his beatification process, Dorotheus Akhrymovych, a Polotsk city councilman who had known Josaphat in Vilna, testified, "Though the parents of the young boys complained publicly and privately about him, calling him the 'Soul-snatcher' of their sons, later, after their sons returned home from their studies, they were happy with the results and thanked the holy man." Father Gennadius Khmelnytsky later testified, "Because of the numerous souls he was converting to God and the numerous boys he was drawing into the religious life from among the townspeople and the
nobility, the Dissidents called him 'Soul-snatcher', instead of his own name Josaphat. They painted a
picture of the
Last Judgement which they placed in the vestibule of the Orthodox church, in which Josaphat was depicted as one of the devils who was dragging souls to
Hell with a hook. Below the painting were written the words: 'Soul-snatcher.'" Whenever Brother Josaphat, however, was called this name, however, he would chuckle and respond, "God grant me the grace to snatch all your souls and lead them to Heaven." After a notable life as a
layman, Rutsky also joined the Order in 1607.
Priest and Archbishop When Josaphat was ordained to the
diaconate, his regular services and labor for the Church had already begun. As a result of his efforts, the number of
novices to the Order steadily increased, and under Rutsky – who had meanwhile been
ordained a
priest – a revival of Eastern Catholic monastic life began among the
Ruthenians (Belarusians and Ukrainians). In 1609, after private study under
Jesuit Valentin Groza Fabricy, Josaphat was ordained a priest by a Greek Catholic bishop.
Joseph Velamin-Rutski later testified, "He took care of the condemned prisoners to their very last hour, as if there were no one else to do it. After hearing their confessions, he would accompany them to the place of execution, without showing a shadow of reluctance on his face, even if the time were most inopportune, in the evening, for example, or in wintertime. He went gladly as if it were a feast day." He subsequently became the
hegumen (
prior) of several monasteries. During his Beatification process, Raphael Korsak testified, "Josaphat never neglected to give alms to the poor, to widows, and especially to orphans. Everyone loved him. Whenever he left the Church, everyone pressed towards the Church doors, seeking solace in his words. Hence, when he was elevated from the office of Hegumen to Archbishop of Polotsk, the beggars wept as they bade their protector farewell. His mercy was even more evident when he became Archbishop, so that one could say that his palace was like a market place and trading post for beggars." During his episcopacy, the
Saint Sophia Cathedral in Polotsk was rebuilt in 1618–1620. Kuntsevych faced the daunting task of bringing the local populace to accept union with Rome. He faced stiff opposition from the monks, who feared
liturgical Latinisation of the Byzantine Rite as well as from widowed priests who had remarried in open violation of the Eastern Code of Canons. As archeparch he: restored the churches: issued a
catechism to the clergy, with instructions that it should be memorized; composed rules for priestly life, and entrusted deacons the task of superintending their observance; assembled synods in various towns in the dioceses; and firmly opposed the
Grand Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania,
Lew Sapieha, who wished to make what Josaphat saw as too many concessions to the Eastern Orthodox at the expense of Greek Catholic faithful. Throughout all his strivings and all his occupations, he continued his religious devotion as a monk, and never abated his practice of
mortification of the flesh in order to offer up his sufferings for the conversion of others. Through all this he was successful in winning over a large portion of the people. Discontent increased among the inhabitants of the eastern voivodeships. In 1618 an Orthodox nobleman at
Mohilev, Vitebsk Voivodeship, who had apparently assented to the Union of Brest, openly resisted its implementation and replaced Greek Catholic priests with Disuniate priests. They substituted the names of
Timothy II,
patriarch of Constantinople, and
Osman II,
Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, in the
Divine Liturgy for those of
Pope Paul V and Sigismund III. The resistance at Mohilev led to a government crackdown against local Orthodox, and a 1619 judicial decree condemned the leaders of the insurrection to death, confiscated all the previously Eastern Orthodox
church buildings at Mohilev, and gave them instead to the Ruthenian Catholic Archeparchy of Polotsk. in other words, he is alleged to have prohibited burial of "Dissidents" in Greek Catholic cemeteries. That changed in 1620, when, with
Cossack aid, a rival Eastern Orthodox hierarchy was set up by with Smotrytsky (who later himself entered into communion with the see of Rome) being appointed the Orthodox Archeparch of Polotsk. The government imposed a settlement on the "unsettling and destructive" conflict in 1632 by legalizing the Disuniate hierarchy and redistributing church property between Uniates and Disuniates. Enraged at this, some Orthodox townspeople lynched Kuntsevych on 12 November. Witnesses of the event described it as follows:
John Szlupas wrote, in
The Princeton Theological Review, that the Lithuanian Protestants were also the secret instigators in the murder of Kuntsevych, and Smotrytsky, the chief agent in the murder, was in constant communication with them. In January 1624, a commission presided over by Sapieha investigated Kuntsevych's murder and sentenced 93 people to death for their involvement in the
conspiracy, With Kuntsevych's death the Disuniates were completely broken up in Lithuania, and their leaders were severely punished. The Disuniates lost their churches in Vitebsk, Polotsk,
Orsha, Mogilev, and other places. Smotrytsky joined the Uniates in order to escape punishment, and turned his pen against the Disuniates whose weaknesses were not secrets from him. The
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church celebrates his
feast day on November 12. When, in 1867, Pius IX inserted his feast into the
General Roman Calendar, it was assigned to November 14, which was the first free day after November 12, which was then occupied by the feast of "
Saint Martin I, Pope and Martyr." In the
General Roman Calendar of 1969, this latter feast was moved to Pope Saint Martin's ('birthday to heaven'), and Saint Josaphat's feast was moved to that date, his own . Some
Traditionalist Catholics continue to observe the
General Roman Calendar of 1954, the
General Roman Calendar of Pope Pius XII, or the
General Roman Calendar of 1960, in which the feast day is on November 14. Kuntsevych's canonization process began in the interval of the
January Uprising of 1863–1865 against the
Russian Empire and was "understood in many circles, including Polish, Russian, and Ruthenian circles, as a papal gesture of moral support for the insurgent Poles."
Churches St. Josaphat Kuntsevych is the
patron saint of a number of Polish and Ukrainian churches and parishes in the United States and Canada, including: •
Basilica of St. Josaphat, in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin •
St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the
Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Saint Josaphat in Parma, Ohio. •
St. Josaphat Roman Catholic Church in Chicago, Illinois • St. Josaphat's Parish of
Bayside, Queens, New York • St. Josaphat's Ukrainian Catholic Church in
Rochester, NY •
St. Josaphat's Roman Catholic Church in Detroit • St. Josaphat Parish in
Cheektowaga, New York, in the
Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo • St. Josaphat's Cathedral and Ukrainian elementary school in
Toronto • St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in the
Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Edmonton,
Alberta • St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Church of Trenton, NJ In
Croatia, he is patron saint of
parishes in
Rajevo Selo and
Sibinj.
Society of St. Josaphat During the 1990s, a group of
Byzantine Rite Traditionalist Catholic priests and laity, who had survived the underground Church during the 1947-1987
religious persecution by the Soviet Government and the
Russian Orthodox Church, founded the
Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat in protest against the allegedly
modernistic theology and actions of the UGCC hierarchy which had arrived from the
Ukrainian diaspora since the
collapse of the Soviet Union. They are closely linked to the
Society of St. Pius X, which is critical of both the
Second Vatican Council and the
Mass of Paul VI.
Relic • There is a relic of the saint in the "catacombs" of
Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church in Chicago. • There are two relics of Saint Josaphat located in the Basilica of St. Josaphat, in Milwaukee Wisconsin. One is located inside the High Altar and the other is located in the lower Chapel. Vatican documentation is presented in the lower Chapel of the authenticity of the relics.
Controversy Josaphat's canonization has been highly controversial among Ukrainian Orthodox population, mostly due to persecution of Orthodox practices incited by Josaphat. These practices include the arrest of Orthodox priests for holding
liturgies. Such actions led the Roman Catholic chancellor
Lew Sapieha to write a letter to Josaphat in behalf of the King, condemning him for his actions and claiming that his persecution was his own fault. ==See also==