function

eparchial priest

creed

Ukrainian Greek Catholic GCmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]

diocese / province

Stanyslaviv GC eparchymore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]
Lviv GC archeparchymore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]
RC Military Ordinariate of Polandmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.12.20]

honorary titles

War Order of Virtuti Militari — Silver (5th Class)more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2019.10.13]
September Campaign Crossmore on
pl.wikipedia.org
[access: 2023.11.24]
Knight's Cross „Polonia Restituta”more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2019.04.16]
Gold „Cross of Merit”more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2019.04.16]
Silver „Cross of Merit”more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2019.04.16]

nationality

Ukrainian

date and place
of death

29.04.1940

Katyntoday: Smolensk reg., Smolensk oblast, Russia
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2020.09.24]

alt. dates and places
of death

30.04.1940, 01.05.1940

details of death

prisoner camp's numbers

2455 (KLW KozelskClick to display the description)

cause of death

mass murder

perpetrators

Russians

sites and events

Katyn (NKWD murders 1940)Click to display the description, «Katyn genocide 1940»Click to display the description, KLW KozelskClick to display the description, Moscow (Butyrki)Click to display the description, KLW StarobilskClick to display the description, Ribbentrop‐MolotovClick to display the description, Pius XI's encyclicalsClick to display the description, Polish‐Ukrainian war of 1918‐1919Click to display the description

date and place
of birth

10.12.1890

Perevozetstoday: Voinyliv hrom., Kalush rai., Stanislaviv/Ivano‐Frankivsk obl., Ukraine
more on
uk.wikipedia.org
[access: 2023.03.02]

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

30.03.1919

positions held

others related
in death

ALEKSANDROWICZClick to display biography Anthony, CHOMAClick to display biography Edward Anthony, CICHOWICZClick to display biography Nicholas, DRABCZYŃSKIClick to display biography Ignatius Marian (Cl. Dominic), FEDOROŃKOClick to display biography Simon, KONTEKClick to display biography Stanislav, POHORECKIClick to display biography John, POTOCKIClick to display biography John Josaphat, SUCHCICKIClick to display biography Casimir, URBANClick to display biography Vladislav Michael, ZIÓŁKOWSKIClick to display biography John Leo, SZEPTYCKIClick to display biography Andrew Mary Stanislav

sites and events
descriptions

Katyn (NKWD murders 1940): From 03.04.1940 till 12.05.1940 Russians in a planned genocide executed in Katyń c. 4,400 Polish POWs kept in Kozielsk concentration camp. The victims were brought by train through Smolensk to the Gnezdowo station in convoys, in groups of 50 to 344 people. From the station to the crime scene, in the so‐called the Kozye Hory area —NKVD recreation center — the victims were transported in a prison bus (known as „chornyi voron”, i.e. black crow). At the site the younger and stronger had military coats put over their heads and their hands were tied behind their backs with a Russian‐made hemp rope, after which they were all killed at short distance with a shot from a 7.65 mm Walther pistol, usually one to the back of the head. Some victims were pierced with a square Russian bayonet. A number of the victims were prob. murdered in the basements of the so‐called internal prison of the NKVD Regional Directorate in Smolensk, where the victims were placed in a sewer manhole, their heads were placed on the bank, and then they were shot in the back of the head. The murdered were buried in eight pits ‐ mass graves. The victims included, among others: Rear Admiral Xavier Czernicki, Generals Bronislav Bohatyrewicz, Henry Minkiewicz and Mechislav Smorawiński, the Chief Orthodox Chaplain of the Polish Army, Lieutenant Colonel Simon Fedorońko, the Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army, Major Baruch Steinberg, 9 Roman Catholic priests, one Greek Catholic and one Evangelical priest, as well as one woman — a pilot Second Lieutenant Janine Lewandowska. The murders were part of an organized Russian genocidal operation against Polish prisoners of war, bearing all the hallmarks of genocide, known as the «Katyn genocide». (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.09.21])

«Katyn genocide 1940»: On 05.03.1940, the Russian Commie‐Nazi authorities — the Politburo of the Russian Communist Party — made a formal decision to exterminate tens of thousands of Polish intelligentsia and military personnel held in Russian camps as a consequence of the German‐Russian Ribbentrop‐Molotov Agreement, the invasion of Poland and the annexation of half of Poland in 09.1939, and the beginning of World War II. The implementing act was order No. 00350 of the head of the NKVD, Mr Lavrentyi Beria, on the „discharge of NKVD prisons” in Ukraine and Belarus. On 03.03.1959, Alexander Shelepin, head of the Russian KGB, described it in a handwritten note: „Since 1940, the Committee for State Security under the Council of Ministers of Russia, has been keeping records and other materials relating to the prisoners of war and interned officers, gendarmes, policemen, etc., people from former bourgeois Poland shot that year. In total, based on the decision of the special troika of the NKVD of the USSR, 21,857 people were shot, of whom: 4,421 people in the Katyn Forest (Smolensk Oblast), 3,820 people from the Starobelsk camp near Kharkov, 6,311 people from the Ostashkov camp (Kalinin Oblast), and 7,305 people in other camps and prisons in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. The entire operation of liquidation of the above–mentioned was carried out on the basis of the Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU of 05.03.1940”. The operation — the murders were committed, among others, in Katyn, Kharkov, Tver, Bykovnia and Kuropaty — was coordinated centrally from the NKVD headquarters in Moscow. This is evidenced by the so‐called deportation lists of subsequent groups of Polish prisoners (usually about 100 people) from NKVD camps sent to places of execution, prepared and distributed a few days before the executions from Moscow. It is also evidenced by the earlier deportations of Polish priests from the Kozelsk, Ostashkov and Starobilsk NKVD camps to NKVD prison in Moscow, or their isolation, just before Christmas on 25.12.1939, prob. in order to deprive Polish prisoners of spiritual care at that time — clearly actions controlled from the NKVD HQ in Moscow. There are indications — i.e. four so‐called „NKVD‐Gestapo Methodical Conferences” of 1939‐1940: in Brest on Bug, Przemyśl, Zakopane and Cracow — of close collaboration between Germans and Russians in realization of plans of total extermination of Polish nation, its elites in particular — decision that prob. was confirmed during meeting of socialist leaders of Germany: Mr Heinrich Himmler, and Russia: Mr Lavrentyi Beria, in another German leader, Mr Hermann Göring, hunting lodge in Rominty in Romincka Forest in East Prussia. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.12.15])

KLW Kozelsk: Russian Rus. Концентрационный Лагерь для Военнопленных (Eng. POW Concentration Camp) KLW, run by genocidal Russian NKVD organization, for Poles arrested after the invasion in 1939, operating in 1939‐1940 in Kozelsk — on the premises of the 18th century Orthodox Stauropygial Introduction of the Mother of God into the Temple Optyn Monastery, shut down and robbed by the Russian Bolsheviks in 1923. In 04‐05.1940, c. 4,594 people were detained there, who were then — as part of the implementation of the decision of the Russian authorities to exterminate dozens thousands of Polish intelligentsia and military personnel — murdered in Katyn. The prisoners included one rear admiral of the Polish Navy, four generals, c. 100 colonels and lieutenant colonels, c. 300 majors and c. 1,000 captains and captains of the Polish Army. Around half of them were reserve officers, including: 21 professors, associate professors and lecturers at universities, over 300 doctors, several hundred lawyers, several hundred engineers, several hundred teachers and many writers, journalists and publicists. There was also one woman, 2nd Leutenant pilot Janine Lewandowska. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23])

Moscow (Butyrki): Harsh transit and interrogation prison in Moscow — for political prisoners — where Russians held and murdered thousands of Poles. Founded prob. in XVII century. In XIX century many Polish insurgents (Polish uprisings of 1831 and 1863) were held there. During Communist regime a place of internment for political prisoners prior to a transfer to Russian slave labour complex Gulag. During the Great Purge c. 20,000 inmates were held there at any time (c. 170 in every cell). Thousands were murdered. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2020.05.01])

KLW Starobilsk: Russian Rus. Концентрационный Лагерь для Военнопленных (Eng. POW Concentration Camp) KLW, run by genocidal Russian NKVD organization, for Poles arrested after the invasion in 1939, operating in 1939‐1940 in Starobilsk — on the premises of the „All Afflicted Joy” Icon of Our Lady Orthodox monastery, looted and closed by Russian Bolsheviks in 1923. In 04.1940 c. 3,800 were kept there (in 11.1939 — 11,262) — per captive there was c. 1.25 m2 of bunk space on which they had to sleep, eat and keep their belongings, initially the receiving only one meal a day. Subsequently— as the fulfillment of Russian government decision to exterminate Polish intelligentsia and prisoners of war camps (Polish holocaust) — were executed in Kharkiv. Among the victims were 8 generals, 55 colonels, 127 lieutenant colonels, 230 majors, c. 1,000 captains, and c. 2,450 lieutenants and second lieutenants of the Polish Army. Almost half were reserve officers: over 20 professors of universities, all without exception scientific staff of the Anti‐Gas Institute of the Polish Army and almost the entire staff of the Institute of Armament of the Polish Army, c. 400 doctors, several hundred lawyers, several hundred engineers, c. 100 teachers, c. 600 pilots , many social activists, several dozen writers and journalists. Used as a concentration camp for Poles later as well. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23])

Ribbentrop‐Molotov: Genocidal Russian‐German alliance pact between Russian leader Joseph Stalin and German leader Adolf Hitler signed on 23.08.1939 in Moscow by respective foreign ministers, Mr. Vyacheslav Molotov for Russia and Joachim von Ribbentrop for Germany. The pact sanctioned and was the direct cause of joint Russian and German invasion of Poland and the outbreak of the World War II in 09.1939. In a political sense, the pact was an attempt to restore the status quo ante before 1914, with one exception, namely the „commercial” exchange of the so‐called „Kingdom of Poland”, which in 1914 was part of the Russian Empire, fore Eastern Galicia (today's western Ukraine), in 1914 belonging to the Austro‐Hungarian Empire. Galicia, including Lviv, was to be taken over by the Russians, the „Kingdom of Poland” — under the name of the General Governorate — Germany. The resultant „war was one of the greatest calamities and dramas of humanity in history, for two atheistic and anti‐Christian ideologies — national and international socialism — rejected God and His fifth Decalogue commandment: Thou shall not kill!” (Abp Stanislav Gądecki, 01.09.2019). The decisions taken — backed up by the betrayal of the formal allies of Poland, France and Germany, which on 12.09.1939, at a joint conference in Abbeville, decided not to provide aid to attacked Poland and not to take military action against Germany (a clear breach of treaty obligations with Poland) — were on 28.09.1939 slightly altered and made more precise when a treaty on „German‐Russian boundaries and friendship” was agreed by the same murderous signatories. One of its findings was establishment of spheres of influence in Central and Eastern Europe and in consequence IV partition of Poland. In one of its secret annexes agreed, that: „the Signatories will not tolerate on its respective territories any Polish propaganda that affects the territory of the other Side. On their respective territories they will suppress all such propaganda and inform each other of the measures taken to accomplish it”. The agreements resulted in a series of meeting between two genocidal organization representing both sides — German Gestapo and Russian NKVD when coordination of efforts to exterminate Polish intelligentsia and Polish leading classes (in Germany called «Intelligenzaktion», in Russia took the form of Katyń massacres) where discussed. Resulted in deaths of hundreds of thousands of Polish intelligentsia, including thousands of priests presented here, and tens of millions of ordinary people,. The results of this Russian‐German pact lasted till 1989 and are still in evidence even today. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.09.30])

Pius XI's encyclicals: Facing the creation of two totalitarian systems in Europe, which seemed to compete with each other, though there were more similarities than contradictions between them, Pope Pius XI issued in 03.1937 (within 5 days) two encyclicals. In the „Mit brennender Sorge” (Eng. „With Burning Concern”) published on 14.03.1938, condemned the national socialism prevailing in Germany. The Pope wrote: „Whoever, following the old Germanic‐pre‐Christian beliefs, puts various impersonal fate in the place of a personal God, denies the wisdom of God and Providence […], whoever exalts earthly values: race or nation, or state, or state system, representatives of state power or other fundamental values of human society, […] and makes them the highest standard of all values, including religious ones, and idolizes them, this one […] is far from true faith in God and from a worldview corresponding to such faith”. On 19.03.1937, published „Divini Redemptoris” (Eng. „Divine Redeemer”), in which criticized Russian communism, dialectical materialism and the class struggle theory. The Pope wrote: „Communism deprives man of freedom, and therefore the spiritual basis of all life norms. It deprives the human person of all his dignity and any moral support with which he could resist the onslaught of blind passions […] This is the new gospel that Bolshevik and godless communism preaches as a message of salvation and redemption of humanity”… Pius XI demanded that the established human law be subjected to the natural law of God , recommended the implementation of the ideal of a Christian state and society, and called on Catholics to resist. Two years later, National Socialist Germany and Communist Russia came together and started World War II. (more on: www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28], www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28])

Polish‐Ukrainian war of 1918‐1919: One of the wars for borders of the newly reborn Poland. At the end of 1918 on the former Austro‐Hungarian empire’s territory, based on the Ukrainian military units of the former Austro‐Hungarian army, Ukrainians waged war against Poland. In particular attempted to create foundation of an independent state and attacked Lviv. Thanks to heroic stance of Lviv inhabitants, in particular young generation of Poles — called since then Lviv eaglets — the city was recaptured by Poles and for a number of months successfully defended against furious Ukrainian attacks. In 1919 Poland — its newly created army — pushed Ukrainian forces far to the east and south, regaining control over its territory. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2017.05.20])

sources

personal:
www.radaopwim.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.10.31], kapelanikatynscy.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.12.15], episkopat.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.10.13]
original images:
bs.sejm.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2017.01.21], rzeszow.ipn.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.12.15], www.katedrapolowa.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.01.16], commons.wikimedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.09.30], ipn.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.02.02], radio.lublin.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2022.05.23], ofm.krakow.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2022.05.23]