Blessed Budka Website

Natalia Radovetz, curator of the St. Volodymyr Museum of the Archepacrhy of Winnipeg, has launched the long-awaited Blessed Nykyta Budka website.  Am happy to have been a contributor.  Stay tuned for new content.

Blessed Budka's Birthday into Heaven

Blessed Nykyta Budka was arrested in Lviv by the Soviets on 11 April 1945 and transported to Kyiv the following day.  For the next twelve months he was interrogated and tried for 'crimes' against the Soviet Union and the Communist Party.  A military tribunal sentenced him to five-years imprisonment on 29 May 1946.  After that he vanished and, for over ten years, no one knew his whereabouts or even if he was alive.  It was rumoured that Budka was being held in Siberia.  Instead, he was among the many innocent people who had been sent to prison camps near Karaganda, Kazahstan.  After Stalin's death, Soviet authorities began to release the survivors. These men and women were finally able to tell the stories about those who had lived and died in the gulag.  Among the survivors from Kazakhstan were Blessed Bishops Ivan Liatyshevsky and Aleksander Khira, and future-archbishop, Father Volodymyr Sterniuk. In 1958 Soviet authorities finally confirmed that Nykyta Budka had died close to 1 October 1949, but more precise dates and details are still lacking to this day.  

Budka and other Ukrainian Catholics who had been criminalized by a criminal regime were politically rehabilitated in September 1991.  This occurred less than a month after Ukrainian independence, with the Soviet 'Union' still officially in existence and the Communist Party having been declared illegal.  Yet no official follow-up to the case has ever occurred, even though Canadian Ukrainians had asked their government for a redress to the Budka case in 1989.

Kazahstani authorities have only recently confirmed that Budka served out his sentence at the Karadzhar prison camp near Karaganda, where he died of heart disease on 28 September 1949. Additional documentation, obtained unofficially in 1995, further specifies that Budka arrived at the camp on 5 July 1946 and was admitted to a nearby hospital on 14 October 1947, the feast-day of his patron, the Protection of the Mother of God according to the Julian calendar.  That day was also the forty-second anniversary of his priestly ordination and the thirty-fifth of his episcopal ordination.  Even the date of his death occurred on  the forty-second anniversary of his ordination to the diaconate.

In 1988 Archbishop Stereniuk recounted a story that he had heard in the camps about Budka dying at a hospital and his remains being left in the forest never to be found.  The documents we now possess are contradictory: one states that he died in the Dzhartas hospital and his body was transported back to the prison camp to be examined and buried at the prison cemetery on 2 October.  This version would explain the origin of some of the legends about the disappearance of his remains from the hospital.  Other documents state that he died at the prison camp itself, still classified perhaps as a hospital outpatient. 

Resolving the discrepancies in the existing data and verifying existing documentation requires better cooperation between Ukrainian Catholic representatives and government institutions in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia. The best way to obtain the truth would be for the  Government of Canada to request a full investigation into the details of the imprisonment and death of a Canadian citizen now honored as a blessed-martyr by 13 million Catholics throughout Canada and 1 billion Catholics throughout the world.

Redress and Investigate the Bishop Budka Case

“I am writing to draw the matter to your attention, and to formally request redress by the Canadian government. [...] According to the Canadian Red Cross, Bishop Budka is known to have died in exile in Karaganda, Kazakhstan Soviet Socialist Republic on October 1, 1949 [28 September]. [...] 

The Ukrainian Catholic Council of Canada, following consultation with Metropolitan Maxim Hermaniuk, Archbishop of Canada, is requesting your assistance in making an official inquiry of Soviet officials as to the specific circumstances surrounding Bishop Budka’s death, and the location of his burial place. Furthermore we are requesting that the Canadian government seek formal acknowledgement from Soviet authorities that the Soviet regime arrested and sentenced Bishop Budka to hard labor in Siberia fully aware that he was, at the material time, a Canadian citizen. 

Our request is being made at this time in preparation for the Centennial celebrations of Ukrainian immigration to Canada in 1991. The laity, in conjunction with our Church hierarchy, intend to pay special tribute to the late Bishop Budka, as the first Ukrainian Catholic bishop for Canada, and to recognize him for his many outstanding achievements as our spiritual leader.  Because many Ukrainian Canadians consider Bishop Budka as a martyr and confessor of the Faith it is essential to present to all Ukrainian Catholics in Canada and abroad a full accounting of his death.”

– Robert Herchak, President of the Ukrainian Catholic Council of Canada, to The Right Honorable Joe Clarke, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Victoria, 26 May 1989.

Note: Through his beatification by Blessed John Paul II in June 2001, Budka was formally recognized “as a martyr and confessor of the Faith,” venerated by 1 billion Catholics worldwide, including 13 million Canadians (being the largest religious denomination in Canada).

Budka was appointed by St. Pius X as Bishop for the Ruthenian-Ukrainian Catholics of the Byzantine Rite (Greek-Catholics) one hundred years ago today, on 15 July 1912.

Announcing the Blessed Bishop Budka Biography

"I am pleased to announce that Bishop Nykyta Budka's story will be told in greater detail and authority in a soon to be published biography researched and written by Rev. Dr. Athanasius McVay, a church historian and priest of our Eparchy of Edmonton." 

– Bishop David Motiuk, Greeting to Patriarch Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) on the 100th Anniversary of Budka's appointment

The upcoming biography of an historical record and analysis of the life and ministry of Nykyta (Nicetas) Budka, the first Ukrainian Greek-Catholic bishop of Canada. It is not a popular biography nor a hagiography (lives of the saints).

It is based largely on archival sources from the Vatican Secret Archives, The Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Lviv; the Archives of the Ukrainian State Security in Kyiv; the Archives of New State Records in Warsaw; the Archives of: the Congregation for the Oriental Churches; of the Archeparchy of Winnipeg; of the Eparchy of Edmonton and of the Archdiocese of St. Boniface, and the Archives of the Basilian Order of St. Josaphat in Rome.

What to look for in the Budka Biography:

Little known or forgotten details about the life and work of Nykyta Budka including: 

- Details about his early years in Austrian Galicia (Western Ukraine).

- Accounts from his seminary years in Lviv and graduate studies in Innsbruck and Vienna.

- A in-depth analysis of the selection process of Greek-Catholic bishops in 1912.

- details about other candidates for the Canadian mission.

- Budka's ordination, journey to Canada and first accomplishments in his new charge.

- Financial and administrative challenges, the newspaper and student residences.
- Franco-Canadian missionaries, Ukrainian Basilians, Redemptorists and secular clergy.

- Sisters, schools, seminary training, building new churches
- Challenges in maintaining the faith of his flock, religious proselytism.

- Religious conflict within the Ukrainian Canadian community.

- The Bishop's activities during the First World War and its immediate aftermath.

- English translations of Budka's official reports to the Apostolic See of Rome, & other correspondence.

- Details regarding the Bishop's heath and resignation. Candidates to succeed him. 

- Returning to the Archeparchy of Lviv to assist Metropolitan Sheptytsky.

- Details concerning Budka's Canadian citizenship status.

- Soviet persecution: surveillance, arrest, trail and sentencing. Prison camp and death.

- Nykyta Budka's burial site. His political rehabitilation and religious glorification.

- Historical evaluation of Bishop Budka's mission.

- A collection of photographs and samples of the bishop's handwritten reports.

-Quotations from the source documents in their original languages (Latin, French, Italian, Ukrainian, Polish, German, English).

Stay tuned for further details and dates

The Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine Reviews The Holy See and The Holodomor

His Excellency, Archbishop Thomas Gulickson, Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine, has posted the following review of our Holodomor book on his web blog:


Living and Dealing with Regimes: The Holy See and The Holodomor...


Through the kindness of Rev. Peter Galadza, PhD, Kule Family Professor of Eastern Christian Liturgy at Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada, I just received a copy of this important little tome. As all of the source material is translated into English, it is destined to a broad reading audience. With notes and all not reaching 100 pages, I would think that no history professor should hesitate to put it on the reading list of any serious course in 20th Century European History.

In preparation for my own mission as Apostolic Nuncio here in Ukraine, I had read another book actually describing the drama of this famine through the eyes of a young boy who survived: "Execution by Hunger, The Hidden Holocaust, by Miron Dolot, W.W. Norton Company, New York, 1987" (Kindle Edition). For this reason, the samples of anonymous letters describing the Holodomor which reached Pope Pius XI sounded terribly familiar. More of our world needs to know and understand. I fear that without such lessons we may be all too inclined not to wish to face the reality that there are people "on top of the heap" who care little for human life or common decency and who seem to be able to surround themselves with a surplus of henchmen to carry out their diabolical designs. The expression "They will stop at nothing" takes on real content and terrible sense in the light of this act of genocide.

Why the Holodomor? In her Afterword to the book Laura Pettinaroli captures it well as being a part of Stalin's plan to obtain hard currency from the sale of grain for the industrialization of his empire. In a year of abundant harvest, all was taken for sale abroad. Nothing was left for the mouths of the peasants who had produced the bounty and so they died of starvation by the millions. That year's was not a poor harvest.

The analysis offered by the editors in their introduction to the documentation is a marvelous piece of scholarship which provides perspective on the possibilities for exercising its moral authority open to the Holy See through diplomacy. (source)

An Overview of the History of the Ukrainian Catholic Church

In the wake of the ad limina visit by Eastern Catholic bishops from the USA, Ann Schneible interviewed me for ZENIT on the history of the Ukrainian Catholic Church:

DISCOVERING AN EASTERN CHURCH: Historian Explains History and Significance of the Ukrainian Church

Bishop Budka's Real Name

Nykyta, Mykyta or Victor?

On 15 July 1912, Pope Pius X appointed thirty-five year old priest, Nykyta Budka, as the first bishop for Ukrainian Greek-Catholics in the vast Dominion of Canada. Budka was born on 7 June 1877 in the village of Dobromirka, in the Zbarazh district of what is now the Ternopil province of Western Ukraine. At the time it was part of "Kingdom" of Galicia and Lodomiria which was part of Austria-Hungary. His parents Michael and Maria chose for his patron saint, the Greek martyr Nykyta (Nicetas).

As a child and later as a young man he excelled in his studies. In 1897 he graduated from the Ternopil gymnasium (high school) with honors after which he studied law for four years at the University of Lemberg (Lviv). He wanted to enter the seminary and begin theological studies but first he had to to perform his mandatory military service in Vienna.

1901 was a turbulent and eventful year in Austrian Galicia. In the capital city of Lemberg, Ukrainian students walked out of the University in protest against discrimination by the Polish administration. The newly-enthroned Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky supported them in their quest and withdrew his seminarians from the University, sending them instead of the prestigious Jesuit-run Canisianum college in Innsbruck. Nykyta Budka completed his military service the following year and, resuming his priestly formation, he too was sent by the metropolitan to the Canisianum. There he joined the ranks of fellow Ukrainian seminarians, some of whom were destined to play leading roles in the Ukrainian Church. Among their number we Yosyf Slipyj, future head of the Church, Kazimierz Sheptytsky, the future Father Klymenti, brother of Metropolitan and archimandrite of the Studite monks; Yosyf Botsian, the future bishop of Lutsk; Konstantyn Bohachevsky, future metropolitan of the United States; Ivan Latyshevsky and Andri Ischak, who were to share Budka's fate of arrest, imprisonment and the crown of martyrdom for the Catholic Faith.

In Innsbruck, Budka appeared to have changed his name, which seems strange since secular clergy do not take religious names. The college academic records list him not under his baptismal name of Nykyta but as Viktor, which is simply a Latin translation of Νικήτας (Nicetas), a victor. The name derives from νίκη (victory).  It was often the custom in Jesuit universities to take Latin names.  The founder of the order itself, Iñigo Loiolakoa, who took the name Ignatius de Loyola, after the ancient Church Father, when entering the university.  So too the namesake of the Canisianum, St. Peter Canisius, is probably a latinization (canis) of the Dutch de Hondt.

Upon arriving in Canada the anti-Catholic Ukrainian press began to make fun of the new bishop and to look for anything that would limit his authority among the Canadian Ukrainian population. In one issue of the notorious but short-lived Kropylo Budka, who was actually a very patriotic Ukrainian, was chided for his lack of Ukrainian identity. Among other things, Kropylo accused him of changing his name from the modern Ukrainian form Mykyta to the archaic ecclesiastical form Nykyta. Universally, at the time and even today, ecclesiastics often use or retain the archaic slavonic version of their names. Notably, Metropolitan Sheptytsky never adopted the modern-Ukrainian Andriy but always retained the older Andrey. The same is true for Konstantyn Bohachevsky, who never adopted Kostyantyn. If the journal had known about the Innsbruck documents, then there might have been even more controversy over Bishop Budka's name.

UK launch of The Holy See and The Holodomor

Rev. Dr.Athanasius McVay co-editor of

The Holy See and the Holodomor

will present this publication

at a book-launching ceremony at

The Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain's Head Office,

49 Linden Gardens, London W2,

on 21 February 2012, 18.30 hrs.

Vatican Diplomacy vs. The Nuremburg Rallies

Many unhistorical works have been written about the Holy See's attitude to the Nazi regime and it's inhuman and anti-Christian ideology. The following communique was sent to Ukrainian Catholic Bishop Vasyl Ladyka (and to all the Canadian Catholic Bishops) by the Apostolic Delegation of Canada on 28 September 1937:

I take the liberty to call Your attention upon the enclosed article, published by the “Osservatore Romano” No.215, entitled “After the Congress of Nuremberg", and dealing with the grevious conditions in which the Catholic Church actually stands in Germany. I respectfully beg from Your Excellency to invite the faithful to prayer in order that the merciful Lord might abbreviate the days of tribulation. In front of the campaign of disinformation and falsehood which certain agencies pursue, even in Canada, about the real objective of the religious persecution in Germany, I beg for Your Excellency to enlighten, by all possible means, the faithful of Your diocese, by exposing the gravity of the situation and showing how the rights of the Church have been disregarded.

The Holy See and the Holodomor

Interviews and Articles about the newly released book:

English audio interview for Vatican Radio

Ukrainian text interview for Radio Liberty - Український інтерв'ю для Радіо Свобода

German text interview for ZENIT

English text interview for Eastern Christian Books

English text interview for ZENIT

Ukrainian audio interview for Vatican Radio - Український інтерв'ю для Радіо Ватікан

Lubomyr Luciuk: English video interview for Kontakt

Lubomyr Luciuk: English tv interview for Michael Coren

Book launch in Rome: Guarini Institute of John Cabbot Univertsity

English interview for DUMKA, newspaper of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (SUB)

The Holy See and the Holodomor

You are cordially invited to attend a reception and book launch

The Holy See and the Holodomor

Documents from the Vatican Secret Archives on the Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine.

by Reverend Dr. Athanasius McVay and Professor Lubomyr Luciuk

Centro Russia Ecumenica (Borgo Pio 141, Rome)

Wednesday, 26 October 2011, 5:30 pm

Sponsored by the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto and The Kashtan Press.

Order here: http://unftoronto.com/Forms/HolodBookOrderForm.pdf

On the event:
http://www.johncabot.edu/about_jcu/guarini-institute/past-events.aspx

The Greek-Catholic Bishops and Ukrainian Independence: 1918

The Austrian Emperor Karl, when he still possessed legitimate power over the nationalities of Austria, promulgated an imperial manifesto to all the peoples of Austria on 17 October 1918, granting them the right to form their own separate national states. Our Ukrainian people of Eastern Galicia immediately called a national assembly on 19 October in Lviv. There, representatives of the whole nation and all its classes, in the presence of its three bishops (Metropolitan Sheptytsky, Bishop Khomyshyn, and myself), voted and proclaimed Eastern Galicia to be its own national, independent state under the name of “The Western Ukrainian Republic”.

After the promulgation of the imperial manifesto, all the nationalities of old Austria did the same. The Germans of Austria founded the Austrian-German Republic and their bishops immediately conformed to the new situation. This manner of proceeding of the German-Austrian bishops corresponded perfectly to the intentions of the Holy Father.

But Generals Haller and Iwaszkiewicz came and with the bayonet brought Eastern Galicia within the confines of Poland. When Metropolitan Sheptytsky, questioned on this, said that the proclamation of the Ukrainian National Assembly was a legitimate juridical act, he was accused of high treason.

— Blessed Josaphat Josyf Kotsylovsky, Bishop of Przemyśl (Peremyshl), to Nuncio Lorenzo Lauri, 10 December 1922.

Audiences of Pius XI with Cardinal Pacelli

Last year, the Vatican Archives published the first volume of the minutes of the papal audiences (fogli d'udienza) granted by Pope Pius XI (Achille Ratti) to his second Secretary of State, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who was to succeed him in the papacy in 1939 as Pius XII. Pacelli served as an official in the papal Secretariat of State from 1904 to 1917, when he was named apostolic nuncio to Bavaria. After an agreement with the German state was reached in 1920, Pacelli was transferred to the newly-created nunciature of Berlin. In 1929 Pius XI summoned him to Rome to receive the cardinal's hat and the following year he was named to replace Cardinal Pietro Gasparri as Secretary of State, more or less the equivalent of a papal prime minister.

Each day the Pope received in audience one or more heads of his curial departments or their second-in-command, but the cardinal secretary of state was received daily and sometimes even on Sunday. Eugenio Pacelli imposed his own style and regimen on His Holiness' Secretariat of State. In the Vatican Archives and other archives of the Apostolic See, audience minutes were usually filed together with the matter to which they pertained. But Pacelli ordered that, after his subalterns had executed the Pope's decisions, the minutes were to be returned to his office where they were retained for reference. Even after Pacelli became Pope in March 1939, he retained the minutes of the audiences with his predecessor. After his death in 1958, they were returned to the archives of the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs (AES- Affari Ecclesiastici Straordinari), an affiliate of the Secretariat of State that dealt with matters in which civil governments were involved.

The minutes themselves are written in Cardinal Pacelli's clear and meticulous hand, on small sheets of paper. Each has the date of the audience at the top centre of the page and each issue has a topic heading, usually indented, followed by Pacelli's account of Pius XI's decision. Pacelli often took dictation, reporting the Pope's very own words on a given subject. Many of these quotations reveal the spontaneous reaction of the typically irascible Pius XI.

Pope John Paul II declassified the first series of documents from Pius XI's pontificate (1922-1939) and Pope Benedict XVI extended this permission to most of the archival collections of the Apostolic See. In 2010, the Vatican Secret Archives published the first volume of the Pius XI-Pacelli audience minutes in its Collectanea Archivi Vaticani series, for the audiences of 1930, Pacelli's first year as papal secretary. The volume contains three important introductory articles by the archives' prefect, Bishop Sergio Pagano, it's vice-prefect, Jesuit Father Marcel Chappin, and the expert scholar, Dr. Giovanni Coco. Coco's biographical article on Pacelli's first year as Secretary of State represents the most important and accurate work on that topic to date. Among other things, with highly intuitive historical analysis, Coco chronicles the transition of power between Gasparri and Pacelli. Following the three articles, the text of the minutes proper is enriched with a rigorous historical apparatus, for instance, copious footnotes which provide background information pertaining to the persons and issues mentioned. Cross references and exhaustive quotations are also provided from correspondence mentioned but not explained in the audience minutes. This publication also contains several useful appendices including short biographies of persons mentioned in the minutes. The Vatican Archives is preparing to publish a volume each year of the audience minutes from 1931-1939.

I was fortunate enough to acquire an autographed copy of the first volume of the fogli d'udienza earlier this year. However, this morning I had a opportunity to consult the original minutes, written in Pacelli's hand, for the years 1933-1934. They are found in the AES archives, which was relocated from the Vatican Secret Archives to the Secretariat of State in December 2010. I did not find the particular reference for which I was searching, but I did stumble upon other interesting issues.

Below is a sample of the minutes from three particular audiences. These excerpts yield a glimpse of the mind of Pius XI on certain political and ecclesiastical issues of the day. His reluctance to see Göbbels certainly reflects an unease towards the emerging regime in Germany.

Papa Ratti's views were coloured by his personal experience in Poland, where he had served as apostolic visitor and nuncio (1918-1921). His 'explosion' about the Pro Russia commission was provoked by Government and ecclesiastical opposition to his Byzantine-Catholic evangelization program. Notably, Marshall Piłsudski refused to permit the creation of two Byzantine-Rite bishoprics:

Audience of 14 March 1933. Possible nomination of an auxiliary Bishop for the Lemkos. Write the nuncio to examine the issue objectively and not to trust one or the other side, since statistics are often false.

Audience of 25 March 1933. Pastoral Letter of the Bishop of Podlachia. On page 23 [he says that] the Pro Russia Commission is useless here [in Poland]. [Pius XI to Pacelli]: And You also know where the opposition is coming from (it’s the Government which even Bishops and priests are colluding with. ... These Poles think only of Polonizing and Latinizing. They don’t want to understand anything. ... Even the Bishop of Podlachia is a Pole and a chauvinist.

Audience of 13 May 1933. Possible Audience for Minister Göbbels (See the report from the Nunciature of Berlin No. 7801). The Holy Father regrets that he is unable to receive him.

Making History - The Election of Sviatoslav Shevchuk

On 23 March, the Synod of the Hierarchy of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church made history by electing 40-year-old Bishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk as Major-Archbishop (patriarch). The Apostolic See of Rome confirmed the election two days later, on the Feast of the Annunciation according to the Gregorian Calendar.

The choice of Kyr Shevchuk harkens back to that of Josyf Slipyj, Metropolitan Sheptytsky's chosen successor. Like Shevchuk, Slipyj was in his early forties when presented in 1937. He was also Shevchuk's predecessor as Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic seminary in Lviv. Both held doctorates in theology from Roman pontifical universities, Slipyj from the Gregorian and Shevchuk from the Angelicum. Despite their youth, both men were chosen over more experienced bishops due to their superior theological science and inspired vision. Both were secular priests who succeeded monastics: Metropolitan Sheptytsky was a Basilian and Cardinal Husar a Studite. Both Slipyj and Shevchuk were chosen over Redemptorist candidates. Pope Pius XI initially inclined to Sheptytsky's second choice, Bishop Charnetsky, and there were several prominent Redemptorist candidates at this past synod.

The similarity of Shevchuk's figure to that of his predecessor is evident in the following description by Sheptytsky, written in May 1937:

Among the priests of my diocese that I would name as distinguishing themselves by their virtue, their talents and their knowledge [...] the Rector of the Seminary and the Academy, Msgr. Joseph Slipyj. He is an initiator and an organizer, a man of wide views and of solid science, having always striven for knowledge and for the Seminary. He is little known by most of the people but the clergy esteems him much.

Hopefully Shevchuk will also make history by becoming the youngest member of the College of Cardinals. While this honour depends on Pope Benedict's personal decision, given Shevchuk's extreme youth it will probably not happen before 2013, when his immediate predecessor turns 80 and loses the right to vote in the Conclave. In addition to my conviction that our hierarchs made the best possible choice, I am personally overjoyed by this election because His Beatitude and I were born 30-days apart and were both theological students at the Angelicum from 1994 to 1995.

27 March 2011: Like his immediate predecessor, Cardinal Husar, Shevchuk is beginning to make history. Today he became the first Catholic primate of Kyiv-Halych:

— to be enthroned in the ancient capital of Kyiv since the Eighteenth century

— to be enthroned in the yet-incomplete Sobor (Arch-cathedral) of the Resurrection

— to have other Eastern Catholic Patriarchs and primates flanking him at the ceremony, notably Patriarch Gregorios III of Antioch and Slovak Metropolitan Ján Babjak.

— to have present at his enthronement representatives from all three Orthodox Churches of Ukraine.

See also "The Church is Young" on the webpage of the Pontifical Society of St. John Chrysostom.

Sheptytsky Requests a Successor

Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky to Pope Pius XI, November 1937:

I think I am obliged in conscience to ask for a coadjutor with the right of succession, and here are the arguments that compel me to this request:


The time of my death will probably be a moment of a very acute crisis, during which it will be much more difficult to select my successor than it would be in relatively peaceful times.

Our government, and more so Polish public opinion, will do their utmost to find a politician, that is a man who would more or less undertake to implement a political agenda hostile to the Union and our nation. There will always be a strong party that will want the promotion of the worst candidate for our ecclesiastical province and there will always be a candidate too weak to withstand the demands of the powerful, against whom there is no canonical reproach.

In the event that Your Holiness deigns to accept my request, I would have the opportunity to present my opinion and nothing would bind in the absolute liberty of the Apostolic See. I did and I think I can say in good conscience I can not have any other intention than the triumph of the great cause of the Union, to which I devoted my life that I would die a hundred times, and in which there is only the glory and triumph of the Apostolic See. For the salvation of the East is one of the greatest glories of the Holy See and the Pope.

Cardinal Husar's History

Lubomyr Cardinal Husar ends his Historic Mandate

His Beatitude Lubomyr Cardinal Husar's life story is a series of historical firsts. Today, 10 February 2011, another historical event occurred when Pope Benedict XVI accepted his resignation as Major-Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (the Synod of Bishops accords him the title patriarch). This marks the first time that the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church has resigned on his own initiative. Indeed, there is no canonical provision for mandatory resignation of an Eastern Catholic patriarch or major-archbishop.

Cardinal Husar's biography includes the following historical firsts. As Head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church he was the first:

– to have lived most of his life outside of Ukraine, in the United States of America and Italy. Although some of the Kyivan Metropolitans were Greek, most of his predecessors lived in Ukrainian lands;

– to have begun his ministry as a secular priest but later embraced the monastic life. Virtually all of his predecessors were members of the Basilian Order. Since 1806 all have been secular priests with the exception of Metropolitan Sheptytsky.

– to have been Archimandrite of the Studite Monks before becoming head of the Ukrainian Church. Metropolitan Sheptytsky had founded the Studites and became their first archimandrite.

– to have been a regular professor at a pontifical university in Rome. Josyf Slipyj taught very briefly at the Gregoriana in 1922;

– to have received episcopal ordination without the papal mandate (1977);

– to have had his episcopal privileges confirmed by the pope and made public almost twenty years later (1996);

– to be appointed exarch of Kyiv-Vyshorod (1996);

– to have been designated a cardinal only a month after his election as major-archbishop (2001);

– not to have received a red hat during the public concistory. Isidore of Kyiv (1440), Sylvester Sembratovych (1895) and Slipyj (1965) received the ancient gallero. Lubachivsky (1985) received a red kolpak (Greek-Catholic biretta).

– to have welcomed a Roman Pontiff to his diocese (2001);

– to become Major-Archbishop of Kyiv-Halych upon the return of the primatial see from Lviv to Kyiv (2004);

– to have participated in a papal conclave (2005);

– to have lost his eyesight during his mandate;

– to have willingly submitted his resignation to the Roman Pontiff. Josyf Sembratovych had been forced to resign in 1882.

– to be present at the installation of his successor.

Help this Research Continue

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Giovanni Battista Montini in Warsaw

Reasons behind his recall to Rome

Very little has been written about the future Pope Paul VI’s five-month sojourn in Warsaw. Biographers concur that something went wrong, prompting Father Giovanni Battista Montini’s recall to Rome in the Fall of 1923. Poor health is invariably mentioned but vaguely, without identifying the malaise. Some authors also suggest that Montini might not have been suited for the work of second secretary at the Warsaw Nunciature. Recently, I have uncovered a few documents which shed light on the nature of the youthful Father Montini’s illness and the circumstances which led to his return to the Vatican.

The Warsaw Nunciature was shut down at the end of the Eighteenth Century after the final partition of Poland-Lithuania. Pope Benedict XV reestablished it in 1919 after Poland regained its independence and named his apostolic visitor to Poland, Achille Ratti, as nuncio, upon the request of the Polish government. Ratti was named cardinal-archbishop of Milan in 1921 and in February 1922 was elected Pope Pius XI. Within a year, the new pope was to unknowingly approve the assignment to the same nunciature of his successor in both the archbishopric of Milan and the papacy.

Ratti had been succeeded as Polish nuncio by Lorenzo Lauri in October 1921. Lauri inherited Ratti’s staff, the auditor (first secretary) Erminigildo Pellegrinetti and second secretary Antonio Farfoli. Pellegrinetti had come with Ratti to Warsaw in 1918 and Farfoli joined the nunciature’s staff in April 1920. Pellegrinetti was destined for higher things. He had competently acted as chargé d’affairs, running the nunciature from June to October 1921 until Lauri reached Warsaw. In March 1922, Pius XI named his former secretary Pellegrinetti to be the first nuncio to Yugoslavia. He was replaced as auditor in Warsaw by Carlo Chiarlo while Farfoli retained his position as second secretary.

The climate in Warsaw proved to be very taxing on the health of the Italian clergy, who invariably served at the nunciature. Monsignor Farfoli’s health began to fail at the beginning of 1923. On 18 January, the nuncio sent a dispatch to Monsignor Pizzardo of the papal secretariat of State (Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs), explaining that Farfoli had been in bed for ten days with phlebitis in the left leg. “Obviously the cold climate is not best for such illnesses and the doctor has ordered hot baths as soon as the season will allow him.” Lauri then asked for a replacement, referring to a recent meeting in Rome when Pizzardo had mentioned Montini’s name for the first time:

If you decide to recall him [Farfoli] for another destination, I would ask Your Most Reverend Excellency to not take long to send me another secretary, since the work here is rather intense. Your Excellency spoke to me of a certain Mondini [sic] that you said you thought was most suitable in every respect. I have no objection whatever to the contrary, not knowing him personally and trusting blindly in the opinion of your Excellency.

It appears that Monsignor Pizzardo intended to send Montini to Warsaw as an experiment or at least for only a short period of ‘field work’. This can be understood from Lauri’s next letter to Pizzardo, dated 11 February:

Regarding Father Montini, I will accept him with open arms because he is coming from You and in the hope that he will grow to like this nunciature and decide to remain, at least for the next winter, to brave that cold that many fear but which has not yet killed the nuncio.

But Montini was not the only candidate. Apostolic Visitor to Ukraine, Father Giovanni Genocchi, had been attempting have an ecclesiastical appointed to Warsaw who would be most familiar with the Eastern Catholic Churches. He suggested Monsignor Margotti of the Oriental Congregation. Nuncio Lauri, in turn, suggested that Farfoli be destined for the Oriental Congregation “especially for his knowledge of the Ruthenian question.”

As to the choice between them, on 19 February, Lauri wrote to Pizzardo:

Not knowing either Montini or Margotti I have no greater preference for one than for the. I leave Your Excellency in complete freedom. Send me a intelligent young man, of good character and as soon as possible, and I will be content.

Pizzardo was notoriously slow and no secretary was to be had for another three months. On 24 April, Lauri wrote again, this time asking for Margotti:

Father Genocchi spoke so well to me of Monsignor Margotti that I believe that he would be most useful to this Nunciature, especially for his knowledge of Polish.

Possibly this dispatch or further pressure for the rival finally induced Pizzardo to send his protégé Montini to Warsaw. Montini’s personnel file in the nunciature’s archives has been completely emptied except for a single folio, a telegram send to Nuncio Lauri on 6 June 1922:

I will arrive Wednesday evening at 8:00 pm. Regards. Montini

During his service, Montini does appear to have been mentioned in any of the official dispatches to the secretariat of state, at least not those drafts currently found in the Warsaw Nunciature’s archives. He was mentioned briefly by Monsignor Chiarlo in connection with the affair of the return of the return of Metropolitan Sheptytsky to Lviv.

On 14 September 1923, Chiarlo wrote that, in his absence, Montini had annswered the telephone call from the Polish Ambassador to the Holy See, informing the nunciature that an agreement had been reached allowing Sheptytsky to return to his see.

No further news of Montini occurs until after his departure. The following letter from Lauri to Pizzardo, dated 11 October 1923, sheds much light on what had occurred to warrant the recall of the young ecclesiastical adept:

Yesterday don G. B. Montini departed for Italy, authorized to return to Rome by the telegram of the 2^nd current of this Secretariat of State. As soon as I arrived in Warsaw, I discovered that, on the previous day, Don Montini had been visited by house doctor, Mr. Markiewicz, who is well known to Holy Father. The Auditor [Chiarlo] questioned this doctor if he believed the harsh winter in Warsaw could be dangerous for Don Montini. He replied that he was healthy in body but, at the same time, he had discovered that his heart had not developed in proportion to the body, which was the cause of the ailments that Don Montini felt from time to time. Despite this, he considered that Don Montini, if he did not expose himself by leaving the house on the coldest and windiest days or during cold rain, could endure without danger even the most terrible days of winter in this capital.

Still, from what I was able to learn myself on my return to Warsaw, I also shared the opinion of Dr. Markiewicz. However, according to that which had been agreed with Your Most Reverend Excellency, I thought to obtain the opinion of another physician, a specialist in heart diseases. An appointment had already been made when he received the aforementioned telegram, which made further investigation unnecessary. I am happy to report that I was and am happy with the performance of the young Don Montini, who proved to be intelligent, hard working, pious, polite, and educated, just as Your Excellency so rightly had described him to me.

Lauri then asked for Carlo Margotti once more but Margotti was destined to remain in the Oriental Congregation until 1930.

These dispatches appear to contradict the hypothesis that Lauri, somehow dissatisfied with Montini’s work, had asked Pizzardo to recall him. The documents removed from Montini’s personnel file would shed further light on the topic but they will not likely be made available for consultation for many years to come, if at all.