Today we commemorate the 400th anniversary of the martyrdom of one of Ukraine's most prominent saints, St. Josaphat Kunciewicz – an unwavering advocate for church unity and reconciliation with Rome.
The totalitarian regime often inadvertently and effectively contributed to true unity among Christians living in the former Soviet Union in the last century by sending both Orthodox and Catholics of all rites to concentration camps together.
Pope Pius XI's encyclical “Ecclesiam Dei,” appropriately published exactly one hundred years ago (November 12, 1923), on the three-hundredth anniversary of Josaphat's martyrdom, reflects on the consequences of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in October 1917, the civil war, and religious persecution in the newly established Soviet Union (1922), which forcibly included parts of Ukraine and Belarus. From this encyclical, we quote:
The blood of Saint Josaphat, just like three hundred years ago, is now and especially now a promise of peace and a seal of unity. We assert, especially now: namely after those unfortunate Slavic lands, shaken by unrest and uprisings, have been drenched in the blood of furious and merciless battles. It seems to us that we hear the voice of that blood, "which speaks more emphatically than Abel's blood," that we see our martyr turning to his Slavic brothers and calling to them with Jesus’ words: "I am sorry for the crowd. They are downcast like sheep without a shepherd." Truly, how poor is their state, how terrible their anguish! How many exiles from their homeland! How much bloodshed and massacred bodies, how much destruction of souls! As we now look at the current calamities that have befallen the Slavs, which are certainly greater than those over which Saint Josaphat wept in his time, it is immensely difficult for us to hold back the tears welling up from our fatherly hearts.
In order to alleviate such immense suffering, we rushed to bring help to those in need (…). However, we could not prevent the increasing attacks on truth and virtue, the disdain for all religious sentiment, the imprisonment and often bloody persecution of the Christian people, its priests, and bishops. (…)
Just as it is necessary for our estranged brothers from the East to put aside old prejudices and strive to understand the true life of the church, without attributing to the Roman church the faults of private individuals, which she herself condemns and seeks to rectify, so too should Latins strive to better and more deeply understand the history and customs of Eastern Christians, for it is from this intimate knowledge that the effectiveness of Saint Josaphat's apostolate flowed.
The text of the encyclical is illustrated by two personal memories. The Orthodox monastic complex on the Solovetsky Islands, where Soviet tyranny established a "special purpose camp," became a place of true unity of hearts. From 1920 to 1939, over a million prisoners passed through the Solovetsky Gulag…
In the evening, our boat arrived at Solovetsky. They brought us ashore, and thus after twenty-five years I once again beheld the fairy-tale beauty of this island [the monastery had been a sought-after pilgrimage site twenty-five years before]. My God, how it has changed! Now there was no dome or cross visible, and everything was covered with a dull gray as if from the Kremlin… But even in this gloomy scene, there lay a new, festive beauty, perhaps even more noble and spiritual, speaking of a long glorious past and the thorny crown at the end…
The Solovetsky Islands are a kingdom of the unfortunate. On the rough, freshly painted temple wall, they painted a huge silhouette of a modern city with cranes, smoking chimneys, and airplanes; dominating it all was a large red five-pointed star. Above the city stood a slogan painted in red: Long live free and joyful labor!
The burden of work here is shared by a young Catholic bishop and an old, emaciated, and wiry Orthodox bishop with a white beard, who evidently has a younger spirit. They are both pushing a cart loaded with goods… Whoever among us happens one day to return to the world will have to bear witness to what we now see here. We see the rebirth of the pure and authentic faith of the first Christians, the unity of the churches in the persons of the Catholic and Orthodox bishops, who are of one mind and united in love and humility.
(Encyclical of Pius XI Ecclesiam Dei of November 12, 1923, articles 15, 16, 19;
memories quoted from A. Riccardi's book, The Century of Martyrs, Chapter I – "the Soviet Century")
