function

eparchial priest

creed

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

diocese / province

Przemyśl GC eparchymore on
pl.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]

nationality

Ukrainian

date and place
of death

02.1948

ITL SevVostLagGuLAG slave labour camp network
today: Magadan, Magadan oblast, Russia
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.09]

details of death

cause of death

extermination

perpetrators

Russians

sites and events

ITL SevVostLagClick to display the description, GulagClick to display the description, Lviv (transit prison no 25)Click to display the description, Drohobych (prisons)Click to display the description, Slave labour in GermanyClick 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

14.05.1900

Voroblevichitoday: Medenychi hrom., Drohobych rai., Lviv obl., Ukraine
more on
uk.wikipedia.org
[access: 2023.03.02]

parents

KECUN Elias
🞲 ?, ? — 🕆 1915, ?

Catherine
🞲 ?, ? — 🕆 1905, ?

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

28.03.1926

Przemyśltoday: Przemyśl city pov., Subcarpathia voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.04.01]
GC chapelmore on
pl.wikipedia.org
[access: 2020.04.04] (in Theological Seminary)

positions held

others related
in death

CZEWERYŃSKIClick to display biography Stephen, JACIWClick to display biography Nestor John, TYCHOWSKIClick to display biography Leo, WESELIJClick to display biography Vladimir, WÓJTOWICZClick to display biography James, SZCZEPANIUKClick to display biography Nicholas

sites and events
descriptions

ITL SevVostLag: Russian Rus. Исправи́тельно‐Трудово́й Ла́герь (Eng. Corrective Labor Camp) ITL Rus. Северо‐Восточный (Eng. North‐East) — concentration and slave forced labor camp (within the Gulag complex), known also as „Kolyma” — initially headquartered in Ust‐Srednekan, and then in Magadan on the Bay of Nagayev in the Magadan Oblast. Founded on 01.04.1932. Prisoners slaved at searching, developing, mining and exploiting deposits of gold, tin, tungsten, cobalt, molybdenum, radioactive raw materials and coal in dozens of mines in the region, building and operating mineral processing and enrichment plants, building access roads and railway lines, building and maintaining a number of hydroelectric power plants, power plants and combined heat and power plants, power lines, construction of river ports, airports, cities, repair and mechanical workshops, factories of construction and supporting materials (cement, glass, rubber, production of refractory materials, bricks, sulfuric acid, steel), in fishing and agriculture, etc. At its peak — till the death on 05.03.1953 of Russian socialist leader, Joseph Stalin — c. 200,000 prisoners were held there: e.g. 70,414 (01.01.1937); 90,741 (01.01.1938); 138,170 (01.01.1939); 190,309 (01.07.1940); 179,041 (01.01.1941); 166,445 (01.07.1941); 147,976 (01.01.1942); 99,843 (01.01.1943); 76,388 (01.01.1944); 87,335 (01.01.1945); 69,389 (01.01.1946); 79,613 (01.01.1947); 106,893 (01.01.1948); 108,685 (01.01.1949); 131,773 (01.01.1950); 157,001 (01.01.1951); 170,557 (01.01.1952). The prisoners were transported on ships to Magadan port on the Sea of Okhotsk, an entry point to the camp, prior to be sent to target sub‐camps. Up to 6 mln of the perished. Ceased to exist not earlier than 20.09.1949 and not later than 20.05.1952. (more on: old.memo.ruClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2024.04.08], www.gulagmuseum.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.05.30])

Gulag: The acronym Gulag comes from the Rus. Главное управление исправительно‐трудовых лагерей и колоний (Eng. Main Board of Correctional Labor Camps). The network of Russian concentration camps for slave labor was formally established by the decision of the highest Russian authorities on 27.06.1929. Control was taken over by the OGPU, the predecessor of the genocidal NKVD (from 1934) and the MGB (from 1946). Individual gulags (camps) were often established in remote, sparsely populated areas, where industrial or transport facilities important for the Russian state were built. They were modeled on the first „great construction of communism”, the White Sea‐Baltic Canal (1931‐1932), and Naftali Frenkel, of Jewish origin, is considered the creator of the system of using forced slave labor within the Gulag. He went down in history as the author of the principle „We have to squeeze everything out of the prisoner in the first three months — then nothing is there for us”. He was to be the creator, according to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, of the so‐called „Boiler system”, i.e. the dependence of food rations on working out a certain percentage of the norm. The term ZEK — prisoner — i.e. Rus. заключенный‐каналоармец (Eng. canal soldier) — was coined in the ITL BelBaltLag managed by him, and was adopted to mean a prisoner in Russian slave labor camps. Up to 12 mln prisoners were held in Gulag camps at one time, i.e. c. 5% of Russia's population. In his book „The Gulag Archipelago”, Solzhenitsyn estimated that c. 60 mln people were killed in the Gulag until 1956. Formally dissolved on 20.01.1960. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2024.04.08])

Lviv (transit prison no 25): Founded in the autumn of 1945 by Russian murderous MVD (successor of genocidal NKVD) in the former Lviv Jewish ghetto. One of the largest of its kind in Russia. 21 barracks, hospital and office bulding were constructed there. Prisoners had to wait from week to a year for transport to one of concentration camps Gulag. Closed down in 1955. (more on: www.territoryterror.org.uaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2020.04.04])

Drohobych (prisons): Before the outbreak of the World War II in 09.1939 a criminal prison functioned at Drohobych Truskawiecka Str. where c. 1,200‐1,500 inmates were held. After the start in 09.1939 of the first Russian occupation a new jail run by Russian NKVD genocidal organization was opened at Striyska Str. (by regional NKVD headquarters). There in 06.1941, after German attack of their erstwhile ally, Russians, NKVD perpetrated a genocidal massacre of prisoners. After German defeat and start in 1944 of another Russian occupation NKVD returned to the same buildings and again opened their jail, where hundreds and thousands of people suspected of not supporting Russia were held and interrogated. The jail was closed in 1959. The prison at Truskawiecka Str. however remained open throughout the World War II, both during Russian and German occupations, stayed open after the end of military hostilities and operates till today. (more on: btx.home.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2020.04.04])

Slave labour in Germany: During World War II Germans forced c. 15 million people to do a slave forced labour in Germany and in the territories occupied by Germany. In General Governorate the obligation to work included Poles from 14 to 60 years old. On the Polish territories occupied and incorporated into Germany proper obligation was forced upon children as young as 12 years old — for instance in Warthegau (Eng. Greater Poland). (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2017.11.07])

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.los.org.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2020.04.04], dlibra.kul.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.12.26]
bibliographical:
„Clergy of Przemyśl Eparchy and Apostolic Exarchate of Lemkivshchyna”, Bogdan Prach, Ukrainian Catholic University Publishing House, Lviv 2015