function

diocesan seminarian

creed

Latin (Roman Catholic) Church RCmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.09.21]

diocese / province

Lviv archdiocesemore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]

academic distinctions

Law MA
Bachelor of Science of Commerce

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]

date and place
of death

15.05.1940

NKVD Katynholiday resort
form.: Kozye Gory forest
today: Smolensk reg., Smolensk oblast, Russia
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2020.09.24]

alt. dates and places
of death

16.04.1940, 17.04.1940

Smolensktoday: Smolensk oblast, Russia
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.06]

details of death

alt. details of death

cause of death

mass murder

perpetrators

Russians

sites and events

NKWD KatynClick to display the description, «Katyn genocide 1940»Click to display the description, KLW KozelskClick to display the description, Ribbentrop‐MolotovClick to display the description, Pius XI's encyclicalsClick to display the description

date and place
of birth

05.08.1912

Prylbychitoday: Novoiavorivsk urban hrom., Yavoriv rai., Lviv obl., Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2023.03.02]

parents

SZEPTYCKI Leo Joseph Mary
🞲 04.07.1877, Prylbychitoday: Novoiavorivsk urban hrom., Yavoriv rai., Lviv obl., Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2023.03.02] — 🕆 27.09.1939, Prylbychitoday: Novoiavorivsk urban hrom., Yavoriv rai., Lviv obl., Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2023.03.02]

SZEMBEK Hedwig
🞲 16.03.1863, Siemianicetoday: Łęka Opatowska gm., Kępno pov., Greater Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.07.18] — 🕆 27.09.1939, Prylbychitoday: Novoiavorivsk urban hrom., Yavoriv rai., Lviv obl., Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2023.03.02]

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, ILKÓWClick to display biography Nicholas, 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

sites and events
descriptions

NKWD Katyn: From 03.04.1940 till 12.05.1940 Russians in a planned genocide executed in Katyn c. 4,400 Polish POWs kept in KLW Kozelsk concentration camp in Kozelsk. This genocide was the implementation of the decision of the Russian Commie‐Nazi authorities — the Politburo of the Russian Commie‐Nazi party — of 05.03.1940 to exterminate tens of thousands of Polish intelligentsia and servicemen, held in Russian camps established after the German‐Russian Ribbentrop‐Molotov Agreement and the annexation of half of Poland by the Russians in 1939, known as «Katyn genocide». After the formal „verdict”, the NKVD Special Council Moscow, i.e. the genocidal Russian kangaroo court known as the «NKVD Troika», sent successive disposition letters to the NKVD in Smolensk — there were c. 46 of them — containing the names of the persons to be murdered. 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. (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»: 05.03.1940, the Russian Commie‐Nazi authorities — the Politburo of the Russian Commie‐Nazi party headed by Joseph Stalin — made a formal, secret decision No. P13/144 to exterminate tens of thousands of Polish intelligentsia and military personnel, „declared and hopeless enemies of the Russian government”, held in Russian camps, as a consequence of the German‐Russian Ribbentrop‐Molotov Agreement, the invasion of Poland and annexation of half of Poland in 09.1939, and the beginning of World War II. The decision was, as it were, „sanctioned” by the verdicts of the NKVD Special Council, i.e. the genocidal Russian kangaroo court known as «NKVD Troika» in Moscow. The implementation in Ukraine and Belarus was made possible by order No. 00350 of 22.03.1940 of the head of the NKVD, Lavrentiy Beria, on the „unloading of NKVD prisons”, i.e. transfer of prisoners from several prisons in Ukraine and Belarus to central prisons, e.g. in Kiev or Minsk. The genocidal «NKVD Troika», after issuing sentences, also sent to local NKVD units, NKVD disposition lists — i.e. lists of convicts — each containing on average c. 100 names. Named lists are known — may be reconstructed — for people held in the KLW Kozelsk and KLW Ostashkov camps, but not for KLW Starobilsk, known for victims from Ukrainian prisons, but not Belarusian ones. It is not even known exactly how many lists there were, mainly because the number of them sent to the NKVD in Belarus is unknown. On 03.03.1959 Alexander Shelepin, then head of the Russian KGB, in a handwritten note stated: „ 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 Starobilsk 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 head of the NKVD recommended to the Russian leader, Nikita Khrushchev, to destroy all personal files of those shot in 1940, but to keep the minutes of the meetings of the «NKVD Troika» and confirmations of the implementation of the decisions of the «NKVD Troika». A one–sentence draft resolution was attached to the note. It is not known whether the resolution was accepted and whether the files were destroyed. The aforementioned protocols and confirmations of the «NKVD Troika» are also not known. 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])

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])

sources

personal:
kapelanikatynscy.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.12.15], www.ogrodywspomnien.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2017.01.21], www.sejm-wielki.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2017.01.21], pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2017.01.21]
bibliographical:
„Lexicon of Polish clergy repressed in USSR in 1939‐1988”, Roman Dzwonkowski, SAC, ed. Science Society KUL, 2003, Lublin
„Schematismus Universi Saecularis et Regularis Cleri Archi Diaeceseos Metropol. Leopol. Rit. Lat.”, Lviv Metropolitan Curia, from 1860 till 1938
original images:
www.muzeumkatynskie.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2017.01.21], www.ogrodywspomnien.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2017.01.21], archiwum2023-ordynariat.wp.mil.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2024.06.25], katedrapolowa.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2017.01.21], ipn.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.12.15], radio.lublin.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2022.05.23], ofm.krakow.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2022.05.23]