Feastday: November 12
Birth: 1580
Death: 1623
Josaphat, an Eastern Rite bishop, is held up as a martyr to church unity because he died trying to bring part of the Orthodox Church into union with Rome.
In 1054, a formal split called a schism took place between the Eastern Church centered in Constantinople and the Western Church centered in Rome. Trouble between the two had been brewing for centuries because of cultural, political, and theological differences. In 1054 Cardinal Humbert was sent to Constantinople to try and reconcile the latest flare up and wound up excommunicating the patriarch. The immediate problems included an insistence on the Byzantine rite, married clergy, and the disagreement on whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son. The split only grew worse from there, centering mostly on whether to except the authority of the Pope and Rome.
More than five centuries later, in what is now known as Byelorussia and the Ukraine but what was then part of Poland-Lithuania, an Orthodox metropolitan of Kiev and five Orthodox bishops decided to commit the millions of Christians under their pastoral care to reunion with Rome. Josaphat Kunsevich who was born in 1580 or 1584 was still a young boy when the Synod of Brest Litovsk took place in 1595-96, but he was witness to the results both positive and negative.
Many of the millions of Christians did not agree with the bishops decision to return to communion with the Catholic Church and both sides tried to resolve this disagreement unfortunately not only with words but with violence. Martyrs died on both sides. Josaphat was a voice of Christian peace in this dissent.
After an apprenticeship to a merchant, Josaphat turned down a partnership in the business and a marriage to enter the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Vilna in 1604. As a teenager he had found encouragement in his vocation from two Jesuits and a rector who understood his heart. And in the monastery he found another soulmate in Joseph Benjamin Rutsky. Rutsky who had joined the Byzantine Rite under orders of Pope Clement VIII after converting from Calvinism shared the young Josaphat's passion to work for reunion with Rome. The two friends spent long hours making plans on how they could bring about that communion and reform monastic life.
The careers of the two friends parted physically when Josaphat was sent to found new houses in Rome and Rutsky was first made abbot at Vilna. Josaphat replaced Rutsky as abbot when Rutsky became metropolitan of Kiev. Josaphat immediately put into practice his early plans of reform. Because his plans tended to reflect his own extremely austere ascetic tendencies, he was not always met with joy. One community threatened to throw him into the river until his general compassion and his convincing words won them over to a few changes.
Josaphat faced even more problems when he became first bishop of Vitebsk and then Polotsk in 1617. The church there was literally and figuratively in ruins with buildings falling apart, clergy marrying two or three times, and monks and clergy everywhere not really interested in pastoral care or model Christian living. Within three years, Josaphat had rebuilt the church by holding synods, publishing a catechism to be used all over, and enforcing rules of conduct for clergy. But his most compelling argument was his own life which he spent preaching, instructing others in the faith, visiting the needy of the towns.
But despite all his work and the respect he had, the Orthodox separatists found fertile ground with they set up their own bishops in the exact same area. Meletius Smotritsky was named his rival archbishop of Polotsk. It must have hurt Josaphat to see the people he had served so faithfully break into riots when the King of Poland declared Josaphat the only legitimate archbishop. His former diocese of Vitebsk turned completely against the reunion and him along with two other cities.
But what probably hurt even more was that the very Catholics he looked to for communion opposed him as well. Catholics who should have been his support didn't like the way he insisted on the use of the Byzantine rite instead of the Roman rite. Out of fear or ignorance, Leo Sapiah, chancellor of Lithuania, chose to believe stories that Josaphat was inciting the people to violence and instead of coming to his aid, condemned him. Actually his only act of force was when the separatists took over the church at Mogilev and he asked the civil power to help him return it to his authority.
In October 1623, Josaphat decided to return to Vitebsk to try to calm the troubles himself. He was completely aware of the danger but said, "If I am counted worthy of martyrdom, then I am not afraid to die."
The separatists saw their chance to get rid of Josaphat and discredit him if they could only stir Josaphat's party to strike the first blow. Then they would have an excuse to strike back. Their threats were so public that Josaphat preached on the gospel verse John 16:2, "Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God." He told the people, "You people want to kill me. You wait in ambush for me in the streets, on the bridges, on the highways, in the marketplace, everywhere. Here I am; I came to you as a shepherd. You know I would be happy to give my life for you. I am ready to die for union of the Church under St. Peter and his successor the Pope."
But aside from words, Josaphat insisted that his party not react in anyway that did not show patience and forbearance. When the separatists saw that they were not getting the violent response they had hoped for they decided to wear Josaphat and the others down as they plotted more direct action. A priest named Elias went to the house where everyone was staying and shouted insults and threats to everyone he saw, focusing on calumniating Josaphat and the Church of Rome.
Josaphat knew of the plot against him and spent his day in prayer. In the evening he had a long conversation with a beggar he had invited in off the streets.
When Elias was back the next morning of November 12, the servants were at their wits' ends and begged Josaphat's permission to do something. Before he went off to say his office he told them they could lock Elias away if he caused trouble again. When he returned to the house he found that the servants had done just that and Josaphat let Elias out of the room.
But it was too late. The mistake had been made. Elias had not been hurt in anyway but as soon as the mob saw that Elias had been locked up they rejoiced in the excuse they had been waiting for. Bells were rung and mobs descended on the house. By the time they reached the house, Elias had been released but the mob didn't care; they wanted the blood they had been denied for so long.
Josaphat came out in the courtyard to see the mob beating and trampling his friends and servants. He cried out, "My children what are you doing with my servants? If you have anything against me, here I am, but leave them alone!" With shouts of "Kill the papist" Josaphat was hit with a stick, then an axe, and finally shot through the head. His bloody body was dragged to the river and thrown in, along with the body of a dog who had tried to protect him.
The unsung heroes of this horrible terrorism were the Jewish people of Vitebsk. Some of the Jewish people risked their own lives to rush into the courtyard and rescue Josaphat's friends and servants from the bloodthirsty mobs. Through their courage, lives were saved. These same Jewish people were the only ones to publicly accuse the killers and mourn the death of Josaphat while the Catholics of the city hid in fear of their lives.
As usual violence had the opposite affect from that intended. Regret and horror at how far the violence had gone and the loss of their archbishop swung public opinion over toward the Catholics and unity. Eventually even Archbishop Meletius Smotritsky, Josaphat's rival, was reconciled with Rome. And in 1867 Josaphat became the first saint of the Eastern church to be formally canonized by Rome.
Ukrainian Greek-Catholic archbishop and martyr "Saint Josaphat" redirects here. For the 3rd or 4th-century saint, see Barlaam and Josaphat.
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Josaphat Kuntsevych, O.S.B.M., (c. 1580 – 12 November 1623) (Polish: Jozafat Kuncewicz, Lithuanian: Juozapatas Kuncevičius, Ukrainian: Йосафат Кунцевич, Josafat Kuntsevych) 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 Brest 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 descended from 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.
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 his influence Kuntsevych grew interested 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 coadjutor archeparch 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: 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 what Josaphat saw as 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 Disuniate 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 Timothy II, patriarch of Constantinople, and Osman II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, in the Liturgy for those of Pope Paul V and Sigismund III. 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 Disuniates 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, 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
Martyrdom of Josaphat Kuntsevych (c. 1861) by Józef Simmler, National Museum in Warsaw 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. 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.
Legacy
Hagiography
 | This section does not cite any sources. (June 2017) |
As a boy Kuntsevych was said to have shunned the usual games of childhood, prayed much, and lost no opportunity to assist at the Church services. Children especially regarded him with affection. As an apprentice, he devoted every leisure hour to prayer and study. At first Papovič viewed this behavior with displeasure, but Josaphat gradually won such a position in his esteem that Papovič offered him his entire fortune and his daughter's hand. But Josaphat's love for the religious life never wavered.
Kuntsevych's favourite devotional exercise was the traditional Eastern monastic practice of prostrations, in which the head touches the ground, while saying the Jesus Prayer. Never eating meat, he fasted much, wore a hair shirt and a chain around his waist. He slept on the bare floor, and chastised his body until the blood flowed. The Jesuits frequently urged him to set some bounds to his austerities.
From Kuntsevych's zealous study of the Church Slavonic Byzantine Rite liturgical books he drew many proofs of Catholic doctrine and wrote several original works. Throughout his adult life, he was distinguished by his extraordinary zeal in performing the Church services and by extraordinary devotion during the Divine Liturgy. Not only in the church did he preach and hear confessions, but likewise in the fields, hospitals, prisons, and even on his personal journeys. This zeal, united with his kindness for the poor, led great numbers of Eastern Orthodox confession Ruthenians to a religious conversion to the Eastern Catholic confession and Catholic unity. Among his converts were many important personages such as deposed Patriarch Ignatius, of Moscow, and Manuel Kantakouzenos, who belonged to the imperial family of the Byzantine Emperor Palaeologus.
Canonization
After numerous miracles attributed to Kuntsevych were reported to Church officials, Pope Urban VIII appointed a commission, in 1628, to inquire into his possible canonization, which examined 116 witnesses under oath. Josaphat's body was claimed to be incorrupt five years after his death. In 1637, a second commission investigated his life and, in 1643, Josaphat was beatified. He was canonized on June 29, 1867, by Pope Pius IX. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church celebrates his feast day on the first Sunday after the Julian Calendar November 12 (Gregorian Calendar November 25). When, in 1867, Pius IX inserted his feast into the General Roman Calendar, it was assigned to November 14, which was the first free day after November 12, which was then occupied by the feast of "Saint Martin I, Pope and Martyr." In the General Roman Calendar of 1969, this latter feast was moved to Pope Saint Martin's dies natalis (birthday to heaven), and Saint Josaphat's feast was moved to that date, his own dies natalis. Some Traditionalist Catholics continue to observe the General Roman Calendar of 1954, the General Roman Calendar of Pope Pius XII, or the General Roman Calendar of 1960, in which the feast day is on November 12.
Kuntsevych's canonization process began in the interval of the January Uprising of 1863–1865 against the Russian Empire and was "understood in many circles, including Polish, Russian, and Ruthenian circles, as a papal gesture of moral support for the insurgent Poles." A Russophile Ruthenian newspaper, Slovo, published several negative articles about Kuntsevych. This antagonism to his canonization "makes sense within the context of the Russophile hegemony in Ruthenian public opinion" and was seen as an insult to Imperial Russia. The Russian government responded, in 1875, with further Russification and forced conversion of the Eastern Catholic Chełm Eparchy, the last Eastern Catholic eparchy in the Russian Empire.
Veneration
The Basilica of St. Josaphat in Milwaukee
According to The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Kuntsevych could be thought of as a patron "of ecumenical endeavour today."
- Churches
St. Josaphat Kuntsevych is the patron saint of a number of Polish and Ukrainian churches and parishes in the United States and Canada, including:
- Basilica of St. Josaphat, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Saint Josaphat in Parma, Ohio.
- St. Josaphat Roman Catholic Church in Chicago, Illinois
- St. Josaphat's Parish of Bayside, Queens, New York
- St. Josaphat's Ukrainian Catholic Church in Rochester, NY
- St. Josaphat's Roman Catholic Church in Detroit
- St. Josaphat Parish in Cheektowaga, New York, in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo
- St. Josaphat's Cathedral and Ukrainian elementary school in Toronto
- St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Edmonton, Alberta
- St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Church of Trenton, NJ
- Society of St. Josaphat
A group of Ukrainian Catholics who oppose the changes made in the Ruthenian Rite to reduce Roman influence have formed the Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat. They are linked to the Society of St. Pius X, which has not recognized the authority of the Second Vatican Council.
- Relic
There is a relic of the saint in the "catacombs" of Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church in Chicago.
