St. Josaphat Kuntsevych
Posted on November 20, 2018 by admin No comments
Predecessor: Gedeon Brolnicki
Successor: Antonius Sielava Personal details
Birth name: Ivan Kunchych
Born: c. 1580 Volodymyr, Volhynian Voivodeship, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Died: November 12, 1623 Vitebsk, Vitebsk Voivodeship, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Sainthood
Feast day: November 12 (Latin Church, Belarusian Greek Catholic Church, Romanian Greek Catholic Church, Ruthenian Catholic Church) November 14 (Latin Church, extraordinary rite) November 25 (Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church)
Beatified: May 16, 1643 Rome by Pope Urban VIII
Canonized: June 29, 1867 Rome by Pope Pius IX
Patronage: Ukraine
Josaphat Kuntsevych, O.S.B.M., (c. 1580 – 12 November 1623) was a Polish-Lithuanian monk and archeparch (archbishop) of the Ruthenian Catholic Church, who on 12 November 1623 was killed by an angry mob in Vitebsk, Vitebsk Voivodeship, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (present day Belarus). He is “the best-known victim” of anti-Catholic violence related to implementing the Union of Brest, and is declared a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church.
His death reflects the conflict among Christian Orthodox and Catholics that had intensified after the Ruthenian Orthodox Church (Kiev Metropolitanate) confirmed its communion with the Roman Catholic Church through the 1596 Union of Brest.
Life
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 Roman 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 Metropolitanate of Kiev (1458–1596) was sent to Rome in 1595 to accede to the Union of Florence on condition that their rituals and discipline were left intact. Most Eastern Orthodox bishops within the Commonwealth, including Michael Rohoza, metropolitan of Kiev – but at Vilnius, Vilnius Voivodeship, the capital city of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth – were signatories of the Union of Brest in 1596 which brought the Metropolitanate of Kiev into communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Two ecclesiastical factions, those Eastern Orthodox bishops who were signatories and those Eastern Orthodox bishops who were not signatories, met and excommunicated each other, but those who did not assent were in a much worse position than before, because they were no longer officially recognized. The Union resulted in two sectarian groups:
Main article: Union of Brest
• Eastern Orthodox adherents who did assent to the Union of Brest articles became Eastern Catholic and were known as “Uniates”, or “unici” in Polish. They were considered as “schismatics and traitors” by the Orthodox Church. “About two-thirds of the Ruthenian population” were Uniates by 1620. The northeastern voivodeships became predominantly Uniate.
• Eastern Orthodox adherents who did not assent to the Union of Brest articles remained Eastern Orthodox and were known as “Disuniates”, or “dysunici” in Polish; they were considered religious dissidents by the government. The southeastern voivodeships became predominantly Disuniate. Disuniates were subjected to varying degrees of religious persecution by the state with the active support of Uniate and Latin Rite Catholic clergy. The Disuniates were leaderless until a reestablished Eastern Orthodox Metropolitanate of Kiev (1620–1685) hierarchy was consecrated in 1620, which the government legalized in 1632.
Early life
He was born Ioann Kuntsevych in 1580 or 1584 in Volodymyr, Volhynian Voivodeship, in the Lesser Poland Province of the Polish Crown (now in Ukraine). He was baptized into a family associated with the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Although a descent of Ruthenian nobility (szlachta, Kuncewicz family), his father had embarked in business, and held the office of town-councilor. Both of Kuntsevych’s parents encouraged religious participation and Christian piety in the young John. In the school at Volodymyr he gave evidence of unusual talent; he studied Church Slavonic, and memorized most of the Horologion, which from this period he began to read daily. From this source he drew his early religious education, because the clergy seldom preached or gave catechetical instruction in that period.
Owing to his parents’ poverty, Kuntsevych was apprenticed to a merchant named Papovič in Vilnius. In Vilnius, divided through the contentions of the various religious sects, he became acquainted with men, such as Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky, a Calvinist convert to the Latin Church who transferred to the Byzantine Rite. Rutsky supported the recent union with Rome, and under whose direction he furthered his interest in the Catholic Church.
Monk and archbishop
In 1604, in his early 20s, Kuntsevych entered the Monastery of the Trinity (Church and monastery of Holy Trinity) of the Order of Saint Basil the Great in Vilnius, at which time he was given the religious name of Josaphat. Stories of his sanctity rapidly spread and distinguished people began to visit the young monk. After a notable life as a layman, Rutsky also joined the Order. 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 Catholic bishop. He subsequently became the hegumen (prior) of several monasteries. On November 12, 1617, he was consecrated as the bishop of the Eparchy of Vitebsk (possibly a titular see created for him), and coadjutor for the Archeparchy of Polotsk. He succeeded as archeparch in March 1618. During his episcopacy, the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Polotsk was rebuilt in 1618–1620.
Kuntsevych faced a 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 archeparch, he restored the churches: he 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 too many concessions to the Eastern Orthodox. Throughout all his strivings and all his occupations, he continued his religious devotion as a monk, and never abated his desire for mortification of the flesh. 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, Disuniates at Mohilev, Vitebsk Voivodeship, who apparently assented to the Union of Brest, openly resisted its implementation and replaced Uniate clergy with Disuniate clergy. They substituted the names of Pope Paul V and Sigismund III in the Liturgy with those of Timothy II, patriarch of Constantinople, and Osman II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The resistance at Mohilev led to increased government intervention against Disuniates, and a 1619 judicial decree condemned the leaders of the insurrection to death and devolved all the previously Eastern Orthodox church buildings at Mohilev to the Eastern Catholic Archeparchy of Polotsk.
Norman Davies wrote, in God’s Playground, that Kuntsevych “was no man of peace, and had been involved in all manner of oppressions, including that most offensive of petty persecutions – the refusal to allow the Orthodox peasants to bury their dead in consecrated ground;” in other words, he prohibited burial of Disunites in Uniate cemeteries.
The Disuniates did not collapse; in 1620, they assembled in synod at Kiev, protected by Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, hetman of Zaporizhian Cossacks, and elected new Eastern Orthodox bishops, including Meletius Smotrytsky as archbishop-elect of Polotsk, all of whom were consecrated “in great secrecy” at Kiev by Theophanes III [pl], Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Neophyte, metropolitan of Sofia, and Avramios, bishop of Stagoi. Thus a rival Disuniate hierarchy was established. Sigismund III accused Theophanes III of being a covert agent working on behalf of the Ottoman Empire and ordered his arrest and arrest of those consecrated by him.
That changed in 1620, when, with Cossack aid, a rival Eastern Orthodox hierarchy was set up by the Orthodox Church, with Smotrytsky (who later himself entered into communion with the see of Rome) being appointed the Orthodox Archeparch of Polotsk.
Smotrytsky publicly claimed that Kuntsevych was preparing a total Latinization of the Church and its rituals.
After 1620, according to Orest Subtelny, in Ukraine, sectarian violence over ownership of church property increased and “hundreds of clerics on both sides died in confrontations that often took the form of pitched battles.”
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.
Death
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 October 1623 Kuntsevych ordered the arrest of the last priest who was clandestinely holding Orthodox services at Vitebsk, where Kuntsevych had a residence. Enraged at this, some Orthodox townspeople lynched Kuntsevych on 12 November. Witnesses of the event described it as follows:
The ringing of cathedral bells and the bells of other churches spread. This was the signal and call to insurrection. From all sides of town masses of people – men, women, and children – gathered with stones and attacked the archbishop’s residence. The masses attacked and injured the servants and assistants of the archbishop, and broke into the room where he was alone. One hit him on the head with a stick, another split it with an axe, and when Kuntsevych fell, they started beating him. They looted his house, dragged his body to the plaza, cursed him – even women and children. … They dragged him naked through the streets of the city all the way to the hill overlooking the river Dvina. Finally, after tying stones to the dead body, they threw him into the Dvina at its deepest.
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, and many were banished and their property confiscated. The townhall and the disuniate churches were destroyed, and the franchises of the city abolished, but restored under the subsequent reign. 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, Orsza, Mogilev, and other places, and Smotrytsky joined the Uniates in order to escape punishment, and turned his pen against the Disuniates whose weaknesses were not secrets from him. The body was recovered from the river and lay in state in the cathedral of Polatsk. Beatification followed in 1643, but canonization did not take place until 1867, more than two centuries later. The body is now in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, placed under the altar of Saint Basil the Great.
Prayer to St. Josaphat Kuntsevych
Lord, fill your Church with the Spirit that gave Saint Josaphat courage to lay down his life for his people. By his prayers may your Spirit make us strong and willing to offer our lives for our brothers and sisters. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Prayer to St. Josaphat Kuntsevych
O Saint Josaphat, wonderful Saint and heroic martyr for the union of our Church with the Vicar of Christ, the Pope of Rome. Thou are glorious on account of thy zeal in the propagation of the true Catholic faith among our people. Thou art wonderful because of thy heroic martyrdom for the unity of faith of our people with the Holy See of Rome, the true center of orthodox Catholicism.
Thou art admirable on account of thy sublime virtues with which thou has adorned thy soul. We admire thy ardent love for Jesus and Mary and thy allegiance to the Vicar of Christ. Thou art a sublime example of all virtues for the people of whom thou wert born. Since thou art so powerful with God as thy miracles prove, I ask thee to obtain for me from Jesus and Mary a strong attachment to the Catholic faith and my beautiful Eastern Rite which I shall never betray nor abandon. Obtain also the grace of indefatigable zeal that I may labor for the reunion of my separated Eastern Brethren.
O glorious martyr of our Catholic Church, remember the nation of which thou wert a son, look at our people and pray to God for future reunion of all Ukrainians under one fold and one shepherd. May the day come soon in which all thy Brethren will assemble before thy holy relics in a free and independent Ukraine to give thanks to God for the union of all Ukrainians with the Holy See. Amen.
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