Term ended 17 November 1947 Ordination October 9, 1907 Successor Ivan Choma Consecration September 23, 1917 | Name Josaphat Kotsylovsky Beatified June 27, 2001 Appointed January 29, 1917 | |
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Church Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Died November 17, 1947, Kiev, Ukraine | ||
Predecessor Konstantyn Czechowicz | ||
Blessed Josaphat Joseph Kotsylovsky (Ukrainian: Йосафат Йосиф Коциловський) was a Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishop and martyr.
Kotsylovsky was born 3 March 1876 in the village of Pakoszowka (then Austria-Hungary, now Poland), of the Lemko Region. Kotsylovsky was of Lemko origin, and Ukrainian national orientation. He studied theology in Rome and graduated in 1907, later that year on 9 October he was ordained to the priesthood. Soon after, he was made vice-rector and professor of theology at the Greek-Catholic seminary in Stanislaviv.
On 2 October 1911 he entered the Order of Saint Basil the Great. On 23 September 1917 Kotsylovsky was ordained bishop in Przemyśl by Andrey Sheptytsky. As bishop, he worked to improve the church's educational system and supported monastic orders. He also took steps to combat the rising Russophile movement by appointing Ukrainian priests and funding Ukrainian language journals.
On 10 July 1941 he welcomed the Wehrmacht forces entering Przemyśl. On 4 July 1943 Kotsylovsky led a mass in the name of the volunteers entering the 14th SS Division.
At the end of World War II, Communist Poland assisted the Soviet Union with the liquidation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. In September 1945 the Communist regime in Poland arrested Kotsylovsky, then released him and arrested him again in 1946. They then handed him over to the Soviet Union. He died on 17 November 1947 in a prison camp near Kiev.
He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 27 June 2001.
The relics of the blessed of Josaphat Kotsylovsky kept in the church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Stryi.