The Polish Ambassador to the Holy See and the Holocaust

 

Archival research can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. But, along the way, you find some fascinating and even disturbing things of great significance, which you we not seeking.  My field of research is Ukrainian oriented, but Ukraine's story is part of a larger narrative and is interconnected with Polish, Austrian, Russian, and German history. A better understanding of the former can only be had by grasping its context upon the backdrop of the others.

 I used to wonder what the fuss was about in Poland about Auschwitz and why it was considered a memorial for Poles as well as for Jews. Although these reports have an indirect connection to Ukrainian history (there were several Ukrainians at Auschwitz), and perhaps are already published elsewhere, I felt compelled, as a witness before history, to post them. Tragically, the cycle of racial hatred and violence introduced and maintained by the Germans continued, later in the war, between Ukrainians and Poles.

Kazimierz or Casimir Papée (1889–1979), served as Ambassador of Poland to the Holy See from 1939 to 1958. He was born in Lemberg or Lwów, which is Lviv in modern day Ukraine. The majority of the city's population were Poles and in 1919 it became part of the Second Polish Republic. Lwów also had a large Jewish population which exceeded Ukrainians in number. Papée was appointed Ambassador in June 1939, only a few months before the onset of the Second World War. It was a time of high tension between the authoritarian "Regime of the Colonels" in Poland and the Holy See, and the post had remained vacant for two years after the death of long-time ambassador Władyslaw Skrzyński. 

Papée bombarded the Vatican with reports throughout the war. He was one of the strongest voices pressuring the Holy See to speak out against the Holocaust and became a thorn in the side of the papal Secretariat of State (Section for political affairs). He continued to maintain the embassy for the Polish Government in Exile after 1939. Even though his ambassadorial rank was revoked by John XXIII in 1958, he headed the Legation of the Government-in-Exile until his death, in 1979.

Below are English translations of two of Papée's French-language reports to the Vatican Secretariat of State concerning Auschwitz and the Shoah:

Vatican, November 21, 1941 

The situation in occupied Poland

 

[…] III Prison camp in Oświęcim

It is reported from reliable sources that Gestapo agents recently carried out a terrible massacre among those they had locked up in the Oświęcim Camp. It is said that 3,000 inmates were killed there during a single day in October. We still don't know their names.

The Oświęcim Camp – (the Germans gave this locality the name “Auschwitz”) – has existed since the spring of 1940. It was installed in the former barracks of the 73rd Polish Infantry Regiment. The number of prisoners – which can be determined by comparing the numbers that each of them wears sewn into their clothes – comes to 17,000; there would be among them more than 12,000 Poles and more than 4,000 Germans. – It must be emphasized that the vast majority of detainees in this Camp are subject to simple administrative provisions, without any court, in which they could have defended themselves, having ruled against them, and without any accusation made against them: the Gestapo arbitrarily sends there all those who seem dangerous or simply undesirable.

The Camp is surrounded by recently constructed walls, barbed wire and high voltage electrical wires. Surveillance is entrusted to a detachment of the Gestapo, which at its command – a strong military troop of SS men and numerous police dogs. The Camp depends on a higher office of the Gestapo, based in Katowice.

In order to isolate the Camp as far as possible from any contact with the population, last march, the Gestapo deported the inhabitants of the entire two kilometre zone around the barracks. For this purpose, the entire population of 3 neighbouring villages, as well as 80 % of the inhabitants of the town of Oświęcim, were deported. After these expulsions, approximately 5,000 prisoners from the Camp were often employed in work outside the barracks, always under the very strict supervision of the agents. The others never come out.

Recently, 19 prisoners were released. Those who have seen them say that they are almost mad, that several of them have broken limbs and that they are terrible to see. Those who have seen them note, with the deepest emotion, that the very appearance of the prisoners is terrible proof of a cruelty which cries to heaven for vengeance.

Stefan Petekycky from Auschwitz

There are children from 16 months old, and old people over 60 years old. The cold, the hunger, the bodily and moral tortures, to which they are subjected night and day, exterminate them. A crematorium, set up in the middle of the Camp, consumed no less than 10 corpses per day in summer, and up to 60 corpses in winter. Almost none of those who were locked up in the Camp in March 1940 have survived to date. The dead are replaced by new victims who are arrested throughout the country. They are, for the most part, intellectuals, and there are many priests and religious people. Recently, His Excellency Monsignor Wetmański, Auxiliary Bishop of Płock, also joined them.

The women from around Oświęcim, despite the terrible danger to which they were exposed, managed to come to the aid of the prisoners by smuggling them food. The poverty which reigns everywhere restricts these women’s Christian heroic activity to a minimum. No more than 300 prisoners are able to obtain additional food through these clandestine channels, which allows them to survive for some time to come.

Recently, in Warsaw, on the square in front of the central station, a film was shown entitled: “Europe on the front lines against the Bolsheviks”. After speaking about this “crusade”, the loudspeaker asked the question: “Where are you, Poles?” Voices immediately rang out from the entire crowd in response: “In Oświęcim!” - The show had to be suspended and various people were arrested. The word “Oświęcim” is written, like the “V” [Victory] on the walls and palisades, despite the Germans.

One of the Germans, a collaborator of the head of the Gestapo, publicly announced that “the Oświęcim Camp is one of Himmler’s glories”. They call this Camp “Todeslager” [Death camp].

Vatican, November 23, 1942

We are informed from Warsaw...  “[…] Mass executions of Jews continued. In Warsaw, Lwów, Wilno, Lublin, Przemyśl, Przeworsk, Tarnów – the number of Jews killed is calculated by many tens of thousands for each of these cities, not to mention all the others. They are killed by means of asphyxiating gas in rooms specially prepared for this purpose (and often in wagons), and by means of machine-gunning, after which the dead and the half-dead are covered with earth together. There are frequent cases of collective suicides of Jewish families; Jewish mothers throw themselves out of high-story windows with their children. In Lublin, the Germans themselves threw Jewish children onto the streets. In Przeworsk, a crowd of desperate Jews gathered around a cross, invoking the pity of Christ. We see everywhere convoys of Jews being led to death. Rumours circulated about the Germans using their corpses in chemical factories (soap factories).

It is already foreseen that the extermination of the Jews in Poland will soon end and that the special detachments, trained for this work, unable to stop shedding blood every day, will have a pressing need for other victims. Already in Eastern Little Poland [Eastern Galicia], men and women beggars have been hunted down and killed. It is feared that a general suppression of the elderly will soon be ordered. All these measures are taken because the aim is to reduce the number of mouths to feed. The sight of these deeds has immense repercussions on the mentality of the Poles: feelings of hatred continue to grow. [...]

General Pavlo Shandruk to Pope Pius XII

Shandruk in Polish uniform

 Your Holiness! 

            On the solemn day, for the whole world of 80th Birthday Jubilee of Your Holiness,

On behalf of 20,000 soldiers of the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army and tens of thousands of their relations, I bend my knee in reverence with deepest gratitude before Your Holiness for having saved those soldiers from certain death.

Those soldiers, and thousands of others of that Division who perished at [the Battle of] Brody were the finest sons of the Ukrainian Nation.

They joined the 1st Ukrainian Division to arm themselves in the hope that, at the opportune moment, they would drive out the old enemy of our beautiful yet somehow unfortunate Ukrainian homeland. And 90% were the flower of the Ukrainian intelligentsia.

 Red Moscow [The Communist Kremlin] demanded their repatriation and the Western Allies, ignorant of the Ukrainian people’s struggle for freedom and independence, were on the verge of handing them over.

At that moment, the one and only hope for us all was the profound faith that only the intervention of Your Holiness could rescue all of those brave patriots. It was with this hope that I, along with delegations from those very soldiers, approached our beloved Prince of the Church, Archbishop Ivan [Buchko], to plead with Your Holiness for help and deliverance.

Your Holiness,

as the Great Patron and Protector of all who are sorrowful and oppressed, You did not refuse His Excellency Archbishop Ivan. We were all saved by the Apostolic See of Your Holiness. And I, their commander, prostrate in filial humility before the Greatest, Worthiest, and Holiest Figure of Your Holiness, we have the greatest honour and good fortune on the day of the 80th jubilee of Your Holiness, to beg the Merciful Saviour and His Most Holy Mother, to bestow endless gifts upon Your Holiness, long life and excellent health for the good of all humanity. All of us without exception will always offer our humble prayers for Your Holiness. We beseech Your Holiness for Your Apostolic Care and intercession before the Throne of the Most High on behalf of our poor humiliated Nation. 

            Prostrate in profoundest respect and endless gratitude          

                        Pavlo Shandruk

Lieutenant-General

Ex-commander of the Ukrainian National Army

May 1956 Anno Domini

 

Documentation from the reign of Pius XII (1939–1958) was opened to scholars in March 2020. Shortly after this, I discovered an Italian translation of the above letter, made by Archbishop Ivan Buchko, in the Archive of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches. The original letter, written in Ukrainian, was only discovered last month in the Vatican Apostolic Archive.

            Finally, scholars will be able to clarify the role played by the Apostolic/Holy See, through its various officials and representatives, in rescuing the Ukrainian Division from being repatriated to the Soviet Union, as demanded by Joseph Stalin. Several books and many articles have been written on the Division but the role of the Pope and his Curia have hitherto been shadowed in mystery and innuendo, since the relative source documents were not accessible. My friend, Professor Myroslav Shkandrij, will touch on this question in his upcoming book on this controversial topic. 

Buhcko visits the Division 1946

          Bishop Buchko brought the desiderata of Ukrainians refugees to the Pope directly and via his Roman Curia, especially through the Congregation which was then called Pro Ecclesia Orientali (today it is Congregation of the Eastern Churches), headed by the indomitable Cardinal Eugène Tisserant. The refugees included both Catholic and Orthodox Christians, and the Apostolic See assisted all of them without discrimination. Among these was the future Metropolitan Ilarion Ohienko, who requested help with research in Switzerland. Buchko asked Tisserant to intervene and the latter obtained access for Ohienko to the University of Fribourg. In arranging this, Tisserant wrote to the Nuncio in Switzerland, in June 1946: “It is the wish of Holy Father that the Oriental Congregation also takes an interest in the material and moral wellbeing of the Orthodox Bishops, in seeking to help them and to assist them with all their just requests.”

In the Spring of 1945, Bishop Buchko wrote to the Pope, to Cardinal Tisserant, and to Monsignors Montini and Tardini of the Papal Secretariat of State. As a Frenchman in Italy who had made his sympathies clear during the War, Tisserant was highly respected by the victors. He lobbied his Allied political and military contacts and the Papal Secretariat of State, which in turn lobbied Allied authorities all over Europe not to forcibly repatriate Ukrainians to the Soviet Union. The Division was only one among several groups in danger of repatriation. Tisserant also brought the Ukrainians’ appeals to the Pope in an audience of 14 and 28 July 1945 and on subsequent occasions.

On 30 September 1955, a general letter of homage was sent to the Pope by the Association of ex-members of the Division. On 15 June 1956, Buchko entrusted Shandruk’s private letter to Cardinal Tisserant, who sent it to the Pope via the Secretariat of State. At the time, the ex-general was residing in Trenton, Ohio, as indicated on Buchko’s Italian translation of the letter (where he substituted “Trenton” for  “травень” (May) 1956. Buchko also airbrushed himself out and substituted the passages referring to himself with thanks to the Oriental Congregation. Although Shandruk had not made that reference in his original letter, Buchko was aware that, without Cardinal Tisserant’s dogged perseverance (as evidenced by internal notes between Tisserant and his own officials), the papal Secretariat of State would not have intervened so vigorously for the Ukrainian prisoners and refugees. In response, the Pope ordered his underlings to thank the old General and to assure him of the Pope’s enduring concern for the “severely tried” Ukrainian people.

Shandruk in UNR uniform

            
General Shandruk was an Orthodox Christian from Volyn. In the First World War he served as a officer in the Russian Army and later in the army of the Ukrainian National Republic. After the war he continued his association with the UNR in Exile. In 1936, he joined the Polish Army and fought to defend the Second Republic against the German Invasion of September 1939 (for which he was posthumously decorated by the Polish Government-in-Exile, in 1965.) In February 1945, he was appointed commander of  a Ukrainian National Army and was dispatched to Austria to organize the former Galicia Division, for that purpose. On 8 May 1945, he surrendered the Ukrainian Army to the British and American Allies. There has been talk of the intervention of Polish General Anders, but it is clear that Shandruk attributed the salvation of his men, at the most critical moment, to the intervention of the Pope. 

Shandruk mentioned the papal intervention on p. 291 of his 1959 book Arms of Valor.

Karol Wojtyła appears in Vatican Archives

Karol Wojtyła (1920–2005) is arguably the most famous Pole in history but he also made a major impact on Ukrainian history, especially on the fate of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. Even before his election to the papacy as John Paul II in October 1978, Wojytła had become a pivotal pubic figure in his homeland where, as Archbishop of Kraków, he held the highest offices in the Church, second only to that of Polish Primate. A few days ago, I stumbled upon a letter written in September 1946, which might represent the first time he was brought to the attention of the Vatican.*

Wojytła’s path to leadership was anything but standard, and is perhaps better described by the old Christian proverb “The ways of Providence are infinite.” To be sure, his call to priestly service came about during a period of wartime terror, where millions were slated for destruction by racial hatred and totalitarian dictatorships.    

The Nazis not only sought to destroy the body, they also sought to destroy the soul. While the Jewish people were their particular focus, they also targeted others for destruction, and among the first victims of Hitler’s racist plan was Poland. Hypothetically, it would be interesting to observe the reaction of a Holocaust denier faced with the mountain of testimonies in Vatican archives. Combing through the Foreign Affairs section of the Archive of the Secretariat of State, a researcher is overwhelmed by reports from diplomats, military chaplains, church and civic leaders, many of which were eyewitnesses to the genocides and ethnic cleansings being perpetuated in the name of the Third Reich.

From 1942, reports began to observe that German atrocities against the Jews pointed towards an intention to bring about their complete annihilation. But Hitler’s eventual plans for the Slavic peoples were not entirely dissimilar. While the Catholic Church was barely tolerated in western Europe, in the east it was being destroyed. Polish bishops, clergy, and religious were imprisoned and killed, seminaries and universities were shut. Church leaders had to find creative ways to provide ministry to their suffering flocks. The Archbishop of  Kraków, Adam Sapieha, demonstrated fearless strength in dealing with the occupiers, who were perhaps a little in awe of a man who held the rank of prince of the Holy Roman Empire.

Unlike like his protégé Wojtyła, who was of humble origins, Sapieha came from an ancient noble line and was groomed for the highest offices in the Church from an early age. He studied in Vienna, Kraków, Lwów (Lviv), Innsbruck, and Rome. From 1905 to 1911, he worked in the Roman Curia as consultant on Polish affairs. In November 1911, he succeeded Cardinal Jan Puzyna, as Prince-Bishop of Kraków. In the normal course of things, the Austrian Emperor would have asked the pope to name Sapieha a cardinal (as per the imperial prerogative). Then came the First World War, the fall of Austria-Hungary and Polish Independence. Together with his friend Archbishop Teodorowicz, Sapieha went against Vatican’s plans for the Polish Church and opposed the papal nuncio, Achille Ratti. After Ratti was elected Pope Pius XI, in February 1922, Teodorowicz and Sapieha were forced to resign their seats as senators, and remained under a partial cloud, as far as Rome was concerned, until the end of the pontificate. The two prelates were also in opposition to the Piłsudski dictatorship and Sapieha had his windows broken by devotes of the late dictator, when he moved the latter’s tomb to a less prominent part of the Wawel cathedral crypt. In 1939, Pius XI and his successor Pius XII refused Sapieha’s resignation. Then, the outbreak of the Second World War changed everything. 

The Archbishop of Warsaw had died in 1938 and the Primate, Cardinal Hlond, was prevented from returning from abroad. Sapieha remained the senior churchmen with the burden of acting as the leader of the bishops within the country. This brought him up against German authorities, who had slated his church and his people for destruction. His reputation quickly changed from unpopular or unpatriotic to being considered a national hero.

On 2 November 1942, Sapieha appealed directly to the governor of German-occupied Poland, Doctor Frank and, the following year, convinced the bishops still at liberty to join him in a second appeal. In the name of humanity, the episcopate decried the killings, arrests, and restrictions on church ministry. They asked for Roman Catholic seminaries to be allowed to reopen, but a response from Berlin was not forthcoming. Their pleas were heard by Pius XII, who first instructed his nuncio in Berlin to submit a diplomatic protest to the German Government but the note was sent back. Further messages elicited a dismissive reply from Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister.

Having failed to influence the German government directly, Pius XII protested on behalf of the Church in Poland in an allocution to the College of Cardinals in June 1943. Translated into Polish, it was read from the pulpit in Warsaw Cathedral. His messages received effusive thanks from the episcopate, from Prime Minister Sikorski, and President Raczkiewicz, who declared himself “profoundly moved by Your Holiness’s words.”

In the meantime, imprisoned and murdered priests had to be replaced, Sapieha opened a clandestine seminary and informed Rome of the situation. When Pius XII learned of the seminary, he instructed the Secretariat of State to send the following message to the Archbishop: “The August Pontiff, with good wishes and fervent prayer, supports this initiative, which is so important for the future of the Church in those regions.” Little did the pontiff know how important the underground seminary would become for the entire world it was already preparing his successor in the Chair of Peter.

No sooner had the Nazis been defeated when Poland, abandoned by the European Allies, was forced by the victorious Soviets to accept another totalitarian regime. Adam Sapieha was finally created cardinal in February 1946 and, undeterred, remained at his post until his death, in 1951. In the meantime, he began to prepare the Polish Church to bring forth new laborers for the spiritual harvest.

On 22 September 1946, Sapieha sent the following letter to Monsignor Domenico Tardini, head of the Secretariat of State’s section for Extraordinary (Diplomatic) Affairs: 

 

Most Illustrious Monsignor,

You will easily understand that we very much want to send our seminarians to Roman universities in order to give them the possibility to perfect their studies and to live, for a time, in the capital of the Church. However, in order to enter Italy, it is necessary to have permission from the Italian Government and to be provided for financially. Wherefore, I am asking if, in some way, You could obtain this permission for us. As to being looked after, they would stay at a College that would provide for them. 

For the moment, we hope to be able to obtain passport for two students, that is, Karol Wojtyła and Stanisław Starowiejski, students of Kraków Diocesan Seminary. I apologize, Monsignor, for disturbing You, but it was necessary to take advantage of the occasion. 

(translated from the Italian original)

 

With the two seminarians' curricula vitae enclosed, Cardinal Sapieha’s letter arrived at the Vatican on 1 October 1946, although the official charged with the correspondence , Monsignor Antonio Samoré [future Cardinal Archivist and Librarian of he Holy Roman Church] was at a loss to explain how it had been delivered. On 4 October, Tardini presented a nota verbale to the Italian Ambassador to the Holy See, asking for his assistance and mentioning the names of the two students. 

For a seminarian to be ‘mentioned in dispatches’ by name is a rare thing. And this letter might well represent the first mention of Wojtyła in correspondence with the Apostolic See, contained in Vatican archival collections.* Sapieha had not specified but, in fact, neither seminarian had yet been ordained. Wojtyła was to receive minor orders and subdiaconate on 13 October, diaconate on 20 October, and priestly orders on 1 November. He was already in Rome on 15 November and registered at the Pontifical Athenaeum (later University) of Saint Thomas Aquinas (known as the Angelicum) on 26 November. This author, who studied Philosophy and Theology at the same university, was privileged to have been present in 1994, when John Paul II came to the Angelicum’s aula magna, which had been renamed in his honour.

* Update  (28.10.2020): The director of the Archive of the Second Section of the Secretariat of State, Dr Johan Ickx, has recently released his new book: Le Bureau: Les Juifs de Pie XII. Upon acquiring a copy today, I discovered that the correspondence pertaining to Wojtyła is mentioned. Ickx also reproduces a photo of the cv sent to Rome but does not provide the text of Sapieha's letter, as I have above, nor mention some of the other details, regarding the incident, mentioned here in this blogpost. The book had not been released at the time I published my findings.

On 27 October 2020, John Burger published an article about this post on Aleteia.

The Vatican and Events in Soviet Ukraine

Next month, I will be presenting an overview on post 1939 Vatican sources pertaining the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, in a conference organized by the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. Much of this information comes from a book I am publishing about Metropolitan Sheptytsky and from recently opened archives.

During the Second World War, the Holy See (the Vatican) struggled to obtain reliable information about the situation of the local Churches in war-torn Europe. This was particularly difficult in areas under the control of Soviet forces, which did not permit communication with the rest of the world.

  Soon after the Nazis and Soviets partitioned Poland, in September 1939, rumours began circulating in the west that Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, Greek-Catholic primate and Archbishop of Lviv-Halych, had been arrested, deported, or killed by the Soviet invaders. Indeed, Sheptytsky himself had been expecting such a scenario, since the Imperial Russian authorities had deported and imprisoned him in 1914. But no such orders were issued, neither in September 1939 nor when the Soviets returned to Lviv in the summer of 1944, following a German interregnum. Kyr Andrey’s moral authority had become too great and Stalin preferred to wait for his imminent demise before setting in motion his plans to suppress and merge the Greek-Catholic Church with his own state-controlled entity, staffed (especially in Ukraine) by clerics working for the Soviet secret services.

            Having endured most of the Second World War, following a long and painful illness, Metropolitan Andrey finally succumbed on 1 November 1944. His brother, Hieromonk Klymentiy, wrote a note to their other brother, General Stanisław, which read: “This very day, at a quarter-to-two in the afternoon, our dear Metropolitan fell asleep in the Lord.” Four days later, news of the venerable prelate’s death was already appearing in the European press, and the Polish Ambassador to the Holy See informed the Papal Secretariat of State of the fact on 12 November. A brief notice was published on the front page of the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano on 14 November followed, the next day, by a longer panegyric containing laudatory declarations from the Cabinet of Ministers of the Polish Government in London. The Government-in-Exile also ordered a solemn requiem Mass to be said by the Polish Military Ordinary on 2 December, at the Church of Saint Stanislaw in Rome.

Confirmation of Sheptytsky’s death from Lviv was not forthcoming for three months. On 6 March 1945, a letter arrived from Sheptytsky’s successor, Metropolitan Yosyf Slipyi, addressed to Pope Pius XII and dated 19 November 1944. Cardinal Eugène Tisserant, head of the Congregation for the Eastern Church (Oriental Congregation), presented the letter to the Pope when he was next received in audience, on 10 March.

News of Slipyi’s succession presented a problem for the Vatican. According to the Concordat between the Holy See and the Second Polish Republic, episcopal appointments required a nihil obstat from the Polish President. But Slipyi had been appointed secretly as coadjutor-successor to Sheptytsky in November 1939, shortly after the Soviet takeover. The Vatican foreign ministry (a section of the Secretariat of State) chose to keep the appointment secret until the end of the war, in order to avoid an inevitable clash with the exiled government. After news arrived that Slipyi succeeded to the post, this became unavoidable.

Monsignor Domenico Tardini, head of the Vatican foreign office, informed Polish Ambassador Casimir Papée that Yosyf Slipyi had succeeded Andrey Sheptytsky in the primatial Lviv-Halych See. Papée had no choice but to issue a diplomatic protest, but his government was in a precarious position. In July 1945, the United States followed by the Allied Governments gave in to Stalin and transferred diplomatic recognition from London to Lublin, where the Soviet occupiers had set up a supposed coalition which was really a Communist regime. Although Papée tried everything to countermand the appointment, in the end diplomatic notes were exchanged stating that it was an exception to the rule, made under wartime conditions. Rather than the exception, it became the new norm: No further placets would be solicited from London, and the Polish People's Republic declared the concordat to be void.

Unbeknown to either party, three days before the Holy See and the Government-in-exile resolved the theoretical conundrum, the entire Greek-Catholic hierarchy, including Slipyi, was arrested and deported by the Soviet secret police. The first news of their arrest reached the Vatican three months later from a Greek-Catholic priest of Polish origins, Count Piotr Rzewuski (later known as Bronsisław Kreuza). He had been a eyewitness to Sheptytsky’s death and the events that followed. As a Pole, he was permitted to leave Soviet Ukraine on 15 June and immediately made his way to Rome. 

After checking his story with the exiled auxiliary-bishop of Lviv, Ivan Buchko, Cardinal Tisserant informed Pius XII on 11 August 1945. At the audience’s conclusion, the Pope kept the typed agenda (foglio di udienza), containing the details, among his own papers. Tisserant’s second in command, Bishop Antonio Arata, sent official notification to the Secretariat of State on 17 September. A week later, further details arrived, via Bishop Buchko, from five sources that had contact with Ukraine via underground agents. The sources specified the exact date of the hierarchs arrest, 11 April 1945, and confirmed their deportation to Kiev, the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In October, Rzewuski would be allowed to present to the pontiff the homage of the loyal Ukrainian clergy, who had been “deprived of their shepherd.” In December, the Pope issued an encyclical letter, Orientales omnes, decrying their imprisonment only days after the Russian Patriarch issued a call to Greek-Catholics to join his fold (a call which would be implemented by force by the NKVD at a fake synod, the following year).

No concrete news of the Ukrainian Catholic bishops’ condition would be be forthcoming for a decade. False reports were published announcing Slipyi’s demise, the first of these appearing in January 1945 in the British Catholic paper, The Tablet. Following the hierarchs’ condemnation by a Soviet military tribunal, on 3 June 1946, the Holy See assumed that Slipyi had died, and Tardini said as much to the peeved Polish ambassador. It was only after Stalin’s death, and the release of some of the bishops and clergy from the gulag, that news to the contrary reached Vatican City. In January 1954, Buchko (now Archbishop), reported that Slipyi was still alive and in prison. The news prompted an elderly and ailing Pius XII to include Slipyi’s name at the top of hierarchs to which he addrressed his encyclical Novimus nos in May 1956. The following December, he sent a formal apostolic letter to Slipyi on the occasion of the latter’s seventieth birthday, congratulating him on his fidelity. We know that a copy of the papal message reached the imprisoned metropolitan. Pius XII did not live to greet Slipyi upon his arrival in Rome seven years later, in January 1963. Negotiations for the longsuffering prelate’s release were carried out by curial officials of Pius’ successor, Pope John XXIII.

A Vatican Memo, Sheptytsky, and the Holocaust

Українські версії тут і тут.

Ven. Andrey Sheptytsky, St George's. Lviv

Recently, a German scholar, Hubert Wolf, gave a "spoiler" interview in which he spoke of previously unearthed documents from Vatican archival collections of 1939–1958, which had been opened briefly this past March. I myself had an opportunity to view some of the newly available files before Italy and the Vatican shut down, due to the Coronavirus quarantine. 

Wolf singled out a memo, penned by a Vatican functionary, regarding a request from the American Government to help confirm the veracity of reports of the Nazi Holocaust against the Jewish People. The memo also mentions parallel reports from the Greek-Catholic Archbishop of Lviv, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky.

As background, Wolf cited a letter that Sheptytsky had written to Pope Pius XII in August 1942. He also made conjectures about the historical significance of the memo. Other journalists picked up his remarks and produced clamorous and sensationalist pieces presenting Wolf's theories as conclusive facts. This "fake news" is now makings its rounds in the Ukrainian press. Some reporters did not refer back to the original interview and assumed that Wolf also claimed to have discovered Sheptytsky's 1942 letter. This is not the case.
   

With over 20 years experience of research in various Vatican collections, I usually notice when something is amiss in reports about those archives. The clearest explanation of the memo's context is offered by Matteo Luigi Napoletano, in his article about the way research should done among newly-opened Vatican files (the English translation is not the best). Napoletano provides the precise archival citation of  Monsignor Angelo Dell'Acqua's internal memo, dated 3 October 1942: Secretariat of State Archives, Affari Ecclesiastici Straordinari [AES], period V, Germania Extracta, position 742, folio 25. Since Napoletano's English translation is awkward, I offer my own rendering here:

No doubt the news contained in the letter by Ambassador Taylor is very serious. But the need arises to ascertain that they correspond to truth, since exaggeration is easy even among Jews. It’s not enough, in my humble opinion, to base it upon information given by the Ruthenian Catholic Metropolitan-Archbishop of Lviv and on Signor Malvezzi (even Orientals are not an example in matters of sincerity). But if we accept the news as true, it would be appropriate to proceed with great prudence in confirming it to Mr. Tittmann, since I also sense something political (if not purely political) in the American Government's initiative. This would bring publicity in the event of confirmation by the Holy See. And that could cause unpleasant consequences, not only for the Holy See but also for the Jews themselves who are into hands of the Germans, and who could be subject to an increase in the hateful and barbaric measures adopted against them.

The information given by "the Ruthenian Catholic Metropolitan-Archbishop of Lviv" refers to a letter of Sheptytsky addressed to Pope Pius XII, dated 29–31 August 1942. Rather than a recent discovery, the document was published 53 years ago in the collections Actes et Documents du Saint-Siège [ADSS], vol. 3/2, document no. 406, pages 625–629. There is a photograph of one of the pages of the handwritten document on page 628. A good English translation of this letter is available here. 

The 29–30 August 1942 letter is perhaps the most informative of approximately 30 letters the Metropolitan wrote to Rome, during the Second World War. The majority of these were addressed to Cardinal Eugène Tisserant, head of the Vatican department responsible for the Eastern Churches (Sacred Congregation of the Eastern Church, as it was known at the time). Sheptytsky also addressed about seven letters to Pope Pius XII directly, and  a few others to the papal secretary of State, Cardinal Luigi Maglione. The Metropolitan also communicated with three other churchmen in Rome: he sent 30 letters to his auxiliary bishop, Ivan Buchko, at least four to the Jesuit General Superior, and three to Father Cyrille Korolevskij.

In subsequent letters to Bishop Buchko, Metropolitan Andrey explained why, previously, he had not provided more candid and detailed information. With his couriers being captured and arrested, Sheptytsky was reluctant to send details which could fall into the wrong hands, "even in Rome." That reference, from a letter dated 3 May 1943, likely refers to interception by Fascist agents, which were allied with the Hitler regime. This could also provide an explanation as to why a letter to the Pope dated March 1942 was never sent. It was likely superseded by the more detailed August report, dispatched when a reliable courier was found.

The memo's reference to "the Orientals" (Eastern Catholics and Orthodox) not being examples "in matters of sincerity" means that the curial official in question, Angelo Dell'Acqua, had some doubts about the veracity of the Metorpolitan's information. Why was that? While most inquiries focus on deciphering Dell'Acqua's remarks regarding Jewish sources, I would offer a brief explanation of the comments on Sheptytsky. 

There are a number of distinct departments in the Papal bureaucracy (the Roman Curia). The most influential is the Secretariat of State, the head of which is like a prime minister to the Pope and a moderator of the whole curial system. Another department is the Congregation for the Eastern Churches or Oriental Congregation as it has been popularly known for almost a century. Each department has a different portfolio and a different view of Church affairs as well as matters that effect the Church from without. Each department vies for the Pope's ear and hopes that their their view of things will prevail and become Vatican policy. 

One of the responsibilities of the State Secretariat is to attend to political matters and relations with sovereign entities. Thus it holds a somewhat political view. The Oriental Congregation is concerned with the wellbeing of the Eastern Churches, and thus holds a more Eastern view. In the early twentieth century, the State Secretariat relied on information sources such as the Polish Ambassador and the Polish-Latin hierarchs. They both represented the Polish view, which was antagonistic toward the Eastern Churches. Ukrainians had no diplomatic representative to present their views at the Vatican. It is no surprise then, that the State Secretariat was very suspicious of Andrey Sheptytsky. On he other hand, the Oriental Congregation, headed by the orientalist scholar Eugène Tisserant, understood and highly valued Sheptytsky's views and plans. 

When it came to Sheptytsky, Pius XII gave his diplomatic Secretariat a hearing, but usually took the advice of his eastern expert, Tisserant. This was manifestly the case regarding Sheptytsky's two most beloved projects: the appointment of his successor and the creation of exarchates in the territories where they had been suppressed or hindered by antagonistic civil governments (especially Russia and Poland). In both cases Papa Pacelli approved to the Lviv Metropolitan's projects over the head of diplomatic objections from his State Department.

If the August 1942 letter tells us nothing that we have not already known for 50 years, there are other letters from Sheptytsky, not yet been made public, which refer to the situation in Ukraine and to the Holocaust. Below is an excerpt from his letter to Tisserant, dated 28 December 1942:

The terror is increasing. For the last two months they executed in Lviv, even without a trial, more than 70,000 Jews. […] Also the arrests continue. From day to day it is becoming clearer that this is aimed at the anahilation of all the intellectuals, both Ukrainians and Poles. 

And here is an expert from his letter to Buchko, dated  30 January 1943:

All the time there is more proof that they want to completely annihilate us. For example, a German supervisor of an interpreter (seminarian) working in Greater Ukraine admitted to him confidentially that the plan for the country is this: to leave only a half million people in all of Ukraine. And to his question, "what about the rest," he received the reply: "Well, that’s obvious..." And truly it is beomming more obvious every day. They place prisoners and workers under such conditions that it is abundantly clear that they intend for the majority to perish. Elderly folk, in various places, are afraid to ask for assistance, since those who ask are arrested and shot within the hour. Thus some old men that lived at the base of Saint George's in Lviv, were all gunned down. In villages and towns people are shot daily, not merely without any trial but also without any reason. The prison on Lącki (Lonsky) Street in Lviv constantly fills up but then empties out. They are taken away in vehicles to be killed somewhere else. In the last few days Father Kovch was arrested and some say that it is not over yet. In prisons and camps (the worst in Auschwitz where Diakiv is with many Banderites). You know about the fate of the Jews in Lviv. In the last two months about 60,000 perished. I don’t know when I’ll send that letter. The nuncio [Orsenigo] won’t accept them so perhaps the Order of Malta’s train.

Polish Government-in-Exile Mourns Metropolitan Sheptytsky

The following statement from Minister of Religion and Education, Monsignor Zygmunt Kaczyński, appeared on the front page of Dziennik Polski and L'Osservatore Romano, respectively the principal news organs of the Polish Government-in-Exile in London and of the Holy Apostolic See:

"The loss of Metropolitan Sheptytsky is grave as much for Poles as for the Ukrainian peoples of Poland. The deceased combined in his person the eminent qualities of pastor of souls and patriot. Throughout forty-years of intense activity, he efficaciously contributed to the development of the religious and cultural life of the entire [Polish] nation and, understanding the absolute necessity, he constantly strove to bring Ukrainians to Poles closer together, on the frontiers of the their common homeland. During the occupation, Metropolitan Sheptytsky maintained his constant line of conduct, concerned as always for so many suffering people. In his pastoral letters, he always encouraged the faithful and his fellow citizens to maintain cohesion, deploring their fratricidal conflicts. We unite, the minister concluded, with the Ruthenian [Ukrainian] Catholics of the district of Lwów, who have been left orphaned of their Shepherd, and we mourn the loss of such an eminent personality and pray ardently for the repose of this chosen soul."

— “Per la Morte di Mons. Szeptyckyj,” in Osservatore Romano (15 November 1944), p.1. cfr. "Minister ks. Kaczyński o śp. Metr. Szeptickim," in Dziennik Polski i Dziennik Zołniera (10 November 1944), p. 1.

Monsignor Kaczyński later returned to Poland, was arrested by the Communists in 1948 and 1951, and was executed in prison on 13 May 1953.

"Reverend Major" : the Story of Father Anton Hodys

London, December 1947

Solving a mystery is gratifying to everyone, not just historians. People are happy to discover the final piece of the puzzle or find the missing link. It brings a sense of completeness to our incomplete existence. Yesterday, I experienced such satisfaction. My colleagues Roman Skakun and Vasyl Harandza helped resolve a conundrum that had been bothering me for a year. Last December, I finished a draft of a history of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Great Britain without having discovered what became of one of its first priests.

Ukrainian Greek-Catholics had been settling in Britain since about 1900 but the Church formally set up a stable mission at he end of the Second World War. Most of the first missionary clergy had to flee their homeland or were serving as chaplains in various armies. Subsequently, almost all of the first priests to serve in UK moved on to other missions in USA, Canada, Australia, and the European continent. I was able to trace their life stories after the UK except for the first one to leave, the Reverend Major Anton Hodys. All sources draw a blank on him after May 1949 when, as Father Josaphat Jean was quoted in the minutes of the London parish chronicle, he “left the country permanently.” From that moment, it was as if Hodys vanished from the face of the earth, at least as far as the Ukrainian Catholic Church was concerned. Over the past year, my colleagues and I have collected the following biographical details, the early years of which were compiled by Skakun from Ukrainian sources:

Anton or Antin Hodys was born on 5 November 1901 in Stryi, Austrian Galicia (present day Ukraine). In 1905 his family moved to the nearby village of Bratkivtsi were he attended the first and second grade at the local elementary school. In 1909, he was sent back to Stryi to attend the more prestigious Kilinsky school and, from 1911, he attended the local gymnasium (grammar school). In 1915, he was conscripted into digging defensive ditches for the occupying Russian Army. At some point during the Russian occupation, he travelled to Kiev to ransom his father, who shared the fate of many nationally-conscious Ukrainians deported away from the front to central Ukraine, northern Russia, Siberia, and east Asia.

In the last days of its existence, Emperor Karl I attempted to turn Austria-Hungary into a federation of autonomous nations under the Habsburg Crown. But with the surrender of Austria imminent, Ukrainian leaders declared an independent Western Ukrainian State on 1 November 1918. Hodys participated in establishing Ukrainian rule in Stryi: From 1 to 20 January 1919 he was sent a reconnaissance and propaganda mission to Transcarpathia, where he established contact with the Brashchayko brothers, prominent local Ukrainophile activists. Subsequently, he trained at officers school in Kolomya and fought on the Nyzhniv-Koropets front in the Fourteenth section of the Zabolotivsky trainee division of the Third Galician Brigade. 

Polish forces drove the Western Ukrainian Army out of Galicia, beyond the Zbruch river. After taking a month’s rest in Vinnytsia, Hodys was sent to the front to repell Denikin’s Volunteer Army. After a second rest-leave he contracted typhoid fever and was sent for treatment. On the road from Zhmyrenka to Proskuriv he was captured by the Poles who sent him to a hospital in Kamianets Podilsk. 

In the meantime, Poland had struck a deal with the other Ukrainian State, the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR), which agreed to sacrifice Galicia (western Ukraine) to Poland, in exchange for military support against Russia. Generals Piłsudski and Petliura joined forces to drive the Bolshevik armies out of Ukraine. After recovering, Hodys joined the Third Iron Brigade of the UNR army and was sent to the front near Bar. The Bolsheviks pushed the brigade back across the Zbruch River into Galicia and destroyed it near Kopychyntsi. With both Ukrainian armies defeated and the cause for independence lost, Hodys returned home in July 1920 to resume his schooling.

Antin Hodys completed grades 6 through 8 at the Stryi Gymnasium and passed his graduating exam on 8 June 1922. Subsequently, he attempted to enrol at the Lviv Greek-Catholic Seminary but was turned away due to lack of available places. He worked for a year on the Oil Fields in Ripne and was finally accepted to the seminary on 25 October 1923. Following the completion of his theological studies on 25 June 1927, he received sacred ordination at the hands of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky: to the diaconate on 10 June and to the priesthood on 17 June 1928.

Like the majority of the diocesan clergy in the Eastern Churches, Hodys married before ordination, likely during the interim year between completing seminary and the diaconate. According to an online genealogy resource apparently managed by a relative, his wife’s name was Irena-Olga (1906–1972), daughter of Henryk and Zenovia Schprintz. In 1936, the couple had twins, Yuriy (+1984) and Zenovia (Schlegell) (+1995).

Antin Hodys was given his first assignment as a curate in Kamyanka Strumylova (today Kamyanka Buzko) on 1 July 1928. During this time, he continued to be actively engaged in Ukrainian cultural and civic affairs. He was a member of the local Prosvita educational association, a supporter of Ukrainian nursury schools, he set up chapters of the Apostleship of Prayer and Confraternity for a Holy Death. In 1931, he took on the additional job of professional religious instructor at the local gymnasium.

But something altered Hodys’ trajectory in a radical way. Europe was becoming more militarized and Poland was no exception. Marshall Piłsudski had imposed a virtual military dictatorship in 1926. By the end of his life, the regime began to abandon any restraint shown toward the ethnic minorities, which made up a third of the population. As Piłsudski lay dying, his colonels concocted a scheme to forcibly assimilate the Ukrainians and Belarusians by the early 1940s. 

Only Ukrainians considered very loyal could be accepted into the ranks of the Polish military. On 1 July 1934, Hodys was accepted as a military chaplain with the rank of captain, considering his previous service as an officer. His first assignment was Kraków and in 1938, he was sent to Bielsko in Upper Silesia, where he also acted as administrator of the Greek-Catholic military parish of Saint Basil. 

Hodys took part in the unsuccessful defence of Poland from the German invasion in September 1939. Driven south across the border, his corps was interned in Romania but, after nine months, they were released and, via Italy, regrouped in France with the Government-in-Exile. After the Germans invaded France, the Polish Government and Army corps fled to Great Britain. After witnessing the London Blitz he and his fellow soldiers were sent to Scotland. On 5 September 1940, he took part in a rally of Polish Military Chaplains in Glasgow, in the presence of President-in-Exile Raczkiewicz and other officials. Hodys was promoted to the rank of major and assigned to the First of three Polish Corps within the British Army. Unlike General Anders' Second Corps, the First Corps did not see active service in Europe but remained in Scotland for defensive purposes. In 1947, he was assigned to work as one of the secretaries of Bishop Józef Gawlina, head of Polish military chaplains. After demobilization, Polish soldiers were sent to resettlement camps. Hodys was assigned to minister to them as well as to Ukrainians in Canadian brigades. He served the Association of Ukrainian Soldiers in the Polish Army which became part of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain in 1946.

Hodys (centre) 

with UGCC priests, London, Spring 1947

With the formal establishment of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Britain, Hodys was numbered among the clergy under the jurisdiction of Apostolic Visitor, Bishop Ivan Buchko. He was among those who welcomed Buchko at Victoria Station during the latter’s second visit on 21 November 1947. In December, Buchko assigned him, together with Josaphat Jean and Petro Diachyshyn, to be responsible to serve southern England. Hodys attended meetings of the parish council of the first Ukrainian Greek-Catholic church in Britain, Saint Theodore of Canterbury, Saffron Hill in London. Buchko also named him one of his counsellors for the British mission and Hodys gave a presentation on canonical and civil marriage law in the United Kingdom at the Ukrainian clergy conference (soborchyk) held in January 1948.

Following the Second World War, Great Britain was left damaged and in an impoverished state. Most of the clergy assembled at the January conference, some elderly and ready for retirement, wanted to leave England for an better life. In addition, Rome had given instructions to send married clergy to Canada and USA, where they could serve under Ukrainian Catholic bishops and perhaps reunite with their families. Major Hodys was no exception. In the Summer of 1948, a chance meeting with an American bishop at a restaurant in Piccadilly Circus presented such an opportunity. Bishop Eugene McGuiness of Oklahoma City was looking for European missionaries to serve his frontier diocese. Following their conversation, he invited twelve Polish Army chaplains to Oklahoma. Before leaving for the United States sometime in April 1949, Hodys was listed in the Ukrainian Catholic directory as residing at Hillside Monastery in Potters Bar, Middlesex. By 18 May, as reported at the London parish council, he had left Britain for good.

As an army chaplain, Major Hodys functioned as a biritual priest, also serving in the Latin Rite. In order to take up McGuiness’s offer, did he have to hide the fact that he was married and of the Byzantine Rite? This could be the case as subsequent information contained in the diocesan necrology, and in an interview given in 1978, he concealed his Ukrainian ethnicity and Byzantine-Rite origins. Diocesan records list him, falsely, as having been ordained in Katowice. 

Mercy Hospital chaplain 1978

In America, he anglicised his name to “Anthony” and was briefly placed at Holy Angels Parish, Oklahoma City. The following year, 1950, he was named chaplain to Villa Therese Carmelite Convent and School, where he served for 19 years. Finally, in 1969, he was assigned as chaplain of Mercy Medical Centre of the Sisters of Mercy, where he served for 12 years. He passed to his eternal reward on 28 April 1981 and is buried in Resurrection Memorial Cemetery.

We are still waiting for more information promised by the kind archivist at the Oklahoma City diocesan archive. Perhaps it will clarify some missing points. For example, why did Hodys have to wait until 8 June 1974 to be incardinated into Oklahoma City? Did it have anything to do with the death of his wife two years previously? In the 1978 interview, he appears to have altered his life-history to conceal his Ukrainian past. Hodys said that he had been back to Poland twice and was in contact with his brother and sister. Where did his wife and children live (Poland or USSR?) and did he ever see them again? 

First Ukrainian Church in London

“How I Found the Church at Saffron Hill”

by Father Josaphat François Joseph Victorien Jean, OSBM

translated from “Як я знайшов церкву на Сафрон Гіл?,” 
in Наша Церква, vol. 15, no. 2 [79] (April–June 1967), p. 14–17.

Father Josaphat Jean, London 1947

I have been in England several times in my life. I was there before the First World War, in 1912, but did not meet with Ukrainians then. In the winter of 1921, I was again in London with Dr. Kost Levytsky to lobby for the Ukrainian question at the British Parliament. After that, I was in England in 1922, 1923, and 1925. 

I know that, in 1922, the Ukrainian Diplomatic Mission, headed by Dr. Stefan Vytvytsky, was in London. Ivan Petrushevych also lived there. From 1925–1939 travelled around England Yakiv Makohin, who considered himself a descendant of Prince Rozumovsky. He established the Ukrainian Bureau in London where Drs. Kisylevsky, Biberovych, and Ivan Petrushevych worked.

Digitaries of our Church also visited Britain: Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, Bishop Nykolai Charnetsky, Father Rector Yosyf Slipyi, our present Major-Archbishop and Cardinal. In the final years before the Second World War, Mitred-Archpriest Jacques Perridon from France and Belgian Redemptorists came to minister.

It must be said, however, that Ukrainian immigration to Great Britain really began during the Second World War. In 1944, Ukrainian-Canadian soldiers in London established the Ukrainian Club at Sussex Gardens, Paddington. Beginning in October 1945, a portion of the Canadian Forces started to return home, and their place was taken by Ukrainian soldiers in General Anders’ Polish Corps. Among these were Greek-Catholic chaplains Antin Hodys, Stefan Koliankivsky, and Ivan Dumych. Afterwards, Rev. V. Pashkivsky joined them, for a sort time.

Having received a mandate from Bishop Ivan Buchko, whom the Apostolic See had named Apostolic Visitor for all Ukrainian Greek-Catholics in Western Europe, with the agreement of my Basilian superiors, I officially arrived in England on 1 March 1947. I immediately went to Westminster and requested an audience with Cardinal Bernard Griffin. The head of the Catholic Church in England received me very courteously, and we spoke at length about how to provide pastoral care for Ukrainian Catholics. I asked the Cardinal if we could acquire a small church for our religious needs, and well remember his response: “My own Catholics do not have enough churches for their own needs, since they were subject to much misfortune during the War. Some of our churches were damaged and, although some have been restored, there are still not enough. But I know that there are many un-renovated Protestant churches for sale. Look for one and, when you find it, let me know and I will help with the purchase.”

I then, immediately broached a second matter with the Cardinal, this time a personal one. Cardinal Griffin was a very merciful person. He picked up the telephone receiver and, for a long time, spoke with the superior of the Oratorian Fathers (London Oratory), and arranged the matter then and there. For a time, I could stay at the Oratory.

fragment of Jean to Griffin

The superior received me very courteously and gave me a comfortable room. I felt as if I was one of my own Basilian monasteries. I celebrated the Divine Liturgy, every morning, in the magnificent church, sometimes even using the High Altar. I partook of the common table together with the Oratorian Fathers. I especially loved to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in the marble chapel of St. Wilfred, who was the principal patron of the founder of the London Oratory, the Servant of God, Father Faber (1814–1863).

For three weeks, I looked all over London for a church. I scoured the papers, but found nothing. In Paddington there was a ruined Protestant church but the architect thought that it would be difficult to repair it. Then, from 28 March, I began a novena in honour of the Servant of God, Father Faber, the founder and first superior of the London Oratory. Each day, I celebrated the Divine Liturgy and prayed ardently in for the intention of finding a church. I remember that 4 April 1947 was Latin (Gregorian) Good Friday, and I was not allowed to celebrate Divine Liturgy in Church. Then I went to Father Faber’s room where there was a small altar. That year was the hundredth anniversary of the Faber’s conversion from Protestantism to the Catholic Church. In a state of great peace, I celebrated the Divine Liturgy and was renewed with interior strength and hope. 

Saffron Hill church

The next day, Saturday, I finished my novena and set out to continue my search for a church. This time I chose the Holborn area. Emerging from the underground,  I stopped at the oldest church in London at Ely Place, Saint Ethelreda (1252 AD) and prayed there for a long time to find a church for Ukrainians. When I was returning to Farringdon underground station I saw a stone church, at the bottom of a dead-end street, that looked unused. Entering the lower area via stairs, I knocked at the side door. A woman came out; it was Mrs Guidera, the wife of [sic] the local alderman. Seeing that I was a priest, she kindly invited me into the house, and it was there that I first learned about the church. It was a Catholic Church that, for the past 50 years, had been used as a school and had been damaged a little, in one place, by a bomb. Alderman Guidera had received funds from the city to fix the roof and, for this, Cardinal Griffin allowed him to live in one part of the school. “Our neighbour, said Mrs Guidera, has a door and window factory. He wants to buy this school so that he can expand his business and is offering the cardinal £5,000. I believe that this building is worth that amount. 

After examining the school, which had once been a church, I virtually flew to Westminster. The cardinal promised to reserve this building for the Ukrainians in London, with the proviso that Westminster Diocese could buy it back in the event that the Ukrainians no longer needed it.

And thus, with God’s help and the prayers of the Father Faber, Ukrainians received their first religious base which would soon helped to invigorate the life of our Church. For 20 years, in modest, dead-end Saffron Hill, God abided with the Ukrainian exiles and they have have reamined with Him and have been fulfilled. I hear that Divine Providence will shortly lead you to a new temple, your first cathedral [1968]. May God bless you! In your new church also remember me, just as I remember my chosen Ukrainian people, each day, for which I gave my whole heart. 

Note: Father Jean's reminiscences were always somewhat romanticised and inexact in chronology, as primary correspondence of the period invariably demonstrates. Letters from Jean to Griffin and diocesan officials reveal that Jean had proposed several churches, all of which were deemed unsuitable, for various reasons. He discovered the 143 Saffron Hill property on Good Friday of the following year, 26 March 1948, long after he had departed from the Oratory and was living at the Ukrainian Bureau in Sussex Gardens. The Guideras were forced to leave the adjoining premises at 144 Saffron Hill, which was turned into parish offices. Sofia Guidera was the alderman, not her husband.

Archimandrite John Salter's account of the Saffron Hill Church.