Josaphat Kuntsevych

Historical and religious background

King Sigismund III Vasa's policy for the Counter-Reformation in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was to reunite, "through missions to non-Catholics, both Protestant and Orthodox," all Christians into the Roman Catholic Church. After preliminary negotiations with Sigismund III and with Grand Chancellor and Great Hetman of the Crown Jan Zamoyski, a delegation of bishops from the Eastern Orthodox Metropolitanate of Kiev (1458–1596) was sent to Rome in 1595 to accede to the Union of Florence on condition that their rituals and discipline were left intact. Most Eastern Orthodox bishops within the Commonwealth, including Michael Rohoza, metropolitan of Kiev – but at Vilnius, Vilnius Voivodeship, the capital city of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth – were signatories of the Union of Brest in 1596 which brought the Metropolitanate of Kiev into communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Two ecclesiastical factions, those Eastern Orthodox bishops who were signatories and those Eastern Orthodox bishops who were not signatories, met and excommunicated each other, but those who did not assent were in a much worse position than before, because they was no longer officially recognized. The Union resulted in two sectarian groups:

Early life

He was born Ioann Kuntsevych in 1580 or 1584 in Volodymyr, Volhynian Voivodeship, in the Lesser Poland Province of the Polish Crown (now in Ukraine). He was baptized into a family associated with Eastern Orthodox Church.

Although a descent of Ruthenian nobility (szlachta, Kuncewicz family), his father had embarked in business, and held the office of town-councilor. Both of Kuntsevych's parents encouraged religious participation and Christian piety in the young John. In the school at Volodymyr he gave evidence of unusual talent; he studied Church Slavonic, and memorized most of the Horologion, which from this period he began to read daily. From this source he drew his early religious education, because the clergy seldom preached or gave catechetical instruction in that period.

Owing to his parents' poverty, Kuntsevych was apprenticed to a merchant named Papovič in Vilnius. In Vilnius, divided through the contentions of the various religious sects, he became acquainted with men, such as Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky, a Calvinist convert to the Latin Church who transferred to the Byzantine Rite. Rutsky supported the recent union with Rome, and under whose direction he furthered his interest in the Catholic Church.

Monk and archbishop

In 1604, in his early 20s, Kuntsevych entered the Monastery of the Trinity (Church and monastery of Holy Trinity) of the Order of Saint Basil the Great in Vilnius, at which time he was given the religious name of Josaphat. Stories of his sanctity rapidly spread and distinguished people began to visit the young monk. After a notable life as a layman, Rutsky also joined the Order. When Josaphat was ordained to the diaconate, his regular services and labor for the Church had already begun. As a result of his efforts, the number of novices to the Order steadily increased, and under Rutsky—who had meanwhile been ordained a priest—a revival of Eastern Catholic monastic life began among the Ruthenians (Belarusians and Ukrainians). In 1609, after private study under Jesuit Valentin Groza Fabricy, Josaphat was ordained a priest by a Catholic bishop. He subsequently became the hegumen (prior) of several monasteries. On November 12, 1617, he was consecrated as the bishop of the Eparchy of Vitebsk (possibly a titular see created for him), and coadjutor for the Archeparchy of Polotsk. He succeeded as archeparch in March 1618. During his episcopacy, the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Polotsk was rebuilt in 1618–1620.

Kuntsevych faced a daunting task of bringing the local populace to accept union with Rome. He faced stiff opposition from the monks, who feared liturgical Latinisation of the Byzantine Rite. As archeparch, he restored the churches: he issued a catechism to the clergy, with instructions that it should be memorized; composed rules for priestly life, and entrusted deacons the task of superintending their observance; assembled synods in various towns in the dioceses, and firmly opposed the Grand Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Lew Sapieha, who wished to make too many concessions to the Eastern Orthodox. Throughout all his strivings and all his occupations, he continued his religious devotion as a monk, and never abated his desire for mortification of the flesh. Through all this he was successful in winning over a large portion of the people.

Discontent increased among the inhabitants of the eastern voivodeships. In 1618, Disuniates at Mohilev, Vitebsk Voivodeship, who apparently assented to the Union of Brest, openly resisted its implementation and replaced Uniate clergy with Disuniate clergy. They substituted the names of Pope Paul V and Sigismund III in the Liturgy with those of Timothy II, patriarch of Constantinople, and Osman II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The resistance at Mohilev led to increased government intervention against Disuniates, and a 1619 judicial decree condemned the leaders of the insurrection to death and devolved all the previously Eastern Orthodox church buildings at Mohilev to the Eastern Catholic Archeparchy of Polotsk.

Norman Davies wrote, in God's Playground, that Kuntsevych "was no man of peace, and had been involved in all manner of oppressions, including that most offensive of petty persecutions – the refusal to allow the Orthodox peasants to bury their dead in consecrated ground;" in other words, he prohibited burial of Disunites in Uniate cemeteries.

The Disuniates did not collapse; in 1620, they assembled in synod at Kiev, protected by Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, hetman of Zaporizhian Cossacks, and elected new Eastern Orthodox bishops, including Meletius Smotrytsky as archbishop-elect of Polotsk, all of whom were consecrated "in great secrecy" at Kiev by Theophanes III, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Neophyte, metropolitan of Sofia, and Avramios, bishop of Stagoi. Thus a rival Disuniate hierarchy was established. Sigismund III accused Theophanes III of being a covert agent working on behalf of the Ottoman Empire and ordered his arrest and arrest of those consecrated by him.

That changed in 1620, when, with Cossack aid, a rival Eastern Orthodox hierarchy was set up by the Orthodox Church, with Smotrytsky (who later himself entered into communion with the see of Rome) being appointed the Orthodox Archeparch of Polotsk.

Smotrytsky publicly claimed that Kuntsevych was preparing a total Latinization of the Church and its rituals.

After 1620, according to Orest Subtelny, in Ukraine, sectarian violence over ownership of church property increased and "hundreds of clerics on both sides died in confrontations that often took the form of pitched battles."

The government imposed a settlement on the "unsettling and destructive" conflict in 1632 by legalizing the Disuniate hierarchy and redistributing church property between Uniates and Disuniates.

Death

John Szlupas wrote, in The Princeton Theological Review, that the Lithuanian Protestants were also the secret instigators in the murder of Kuntsevych, and Smotrytsky, the chief agent in the murder, was in constant communication with them.

In October 1623 Kuntsevych ordered the arrest of the last priest who was clandestinely holding Orthodox services at Vitebsk, where Kuntsevych had a residence. Enraged at this, some Orthodox townspeople lynched Kuntsevych on 12 November. Witnesses of the event described it as follows:

The ringing of cathedral bells and the bells of other churches spread. This was the signal and call to insurrection. From all sides of town masses of people – men, women, and children – gathered with stones and attacked the archbishop's residence. The masses attacked and injured the servants and assistants of the archbishop, and broke into the room where he was alone. One hit him on the head with a stick, another split it with an axe, and when Kuntsevych fell, they started beating him. They looted his house, dragged his body to the plaza, cursed him – even women and children. ... They dragged him naked through the streets of the city all the way to the hill overlooking the river Dvina. Finally, after tying stones to the dead body, they threw him into the Dvina at its deepest.

In January 1624, a commission presided over by Sapieha investigated Kuntsevych's murder and sentenced 93 people to death for their involvement in the conspiracy, and many were banished and their property confiscated. The townhall and the disuniate churches were destroyed, and the franchises of the city abolished, but restored under the subsequent reign. With Kuntsevych's death the Disuniates were completely broken up in Lithuania, and their leaders were severely punished. The Disuniates lost their churches in Vitebsk, Polotsk, Orsza, Mogilev, and other places, and Smotrytsky joined the Uniates in order to escape punishment, and turned his pen against the Disuniates whose weaknesses were not secrets from him. The body was recovered from the river and lay in state in the cathedral of Polatsk. Beatification followed in 1643, but canonization did not take place until 1867, more than two centuries later. The body is now in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, placed under the altar of Saint Basil the Great.

Hagiography

As a boy Kuntsevych was said to have shunned the usual games of childhood, prayed much, and lost no opportunity to assist at the Church services. Children especially regarded him with affection. As an apprentice, he devoted every leisure hour to prayer and study. At first Papovič viewed this behavior with displeasure, but Josaphat gradually won such a position in his esteem, that Papovič offered him his entire fortune and his daughter's hand. But Josaphat's love for the religious life never wavered.

Kuntsevych's favourite devotional exercise was the traditional Eastern monastic practice of prostrations, in which the head touches the ground, while saying the Jesus Prayer. Never eating meat, he fasted much, wore a hair shirt and a chain around his waist. He slept on the bare floor, and chastised his body until the blood flowed. The Jesuits frequently urged him to set some bounds to his austerities.

From Kuntsevych's zealous study of the Church Slavonic Byzantine Rite liturgical books he drew many proofs of Catholic doctrine and wrote several original works. Throughout his adult life, he was distinguished by his extraordinary zeal in performing the Church services and by extraordinary devotion during the Divine Liturgy. Not only in the church did he preach and hear confessions, but likewise in the fields, hospitals, prisons, and even on his personal journeys. This zeal, united with his kindness for the poor, led great numbers of Eastern Orthodox confession Ruthenians to a religious conversion to the Eastern Catholic confession and Catholic unity. Among his converts were many important personages such as deposed Patriarch Ignatius, of Moscow, and Manuel Kantakouzenos, who belonged to the imperial family of the Byzantine Emperor Palaeologus.

Canonization

After numerous miracles attributed to Kuntsevych were reported to Church officials, Pope Urban VIII appointed a commission in 1628, to inquire into his possible canonization, which examined 116 witnesses under oath. Josaphat's body was claimed to be incorrupt five years after his death. In 1637, a second commission investigated his life and, in 1643, Josaphat was beatified. He was canonized on June 29, 1867 by Pope Pius IX. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church celebrates his feast day on the first Sunday after the Julian Calendar November 12 (Gregorian Calendar November 25). When, in 1867, Pius IX inserted his feast into the General Roman Calendar, it was assigned to November 14, which was the first free day after November 12, which was then occupied by the feast of "Saint Martin I, Pope and Martyr." In the General Roman Calendar of 1969, this latter feast was moved to Pope Saint Martin's dies natalis (birthday to heaven), and Saint Josaphat's feast was moved to that date, his own dies natalis. Some Traditionalist Catholics continue to observe the General Roman Calendar of 1954, the General Roman Calendar of Pope Pius XII, or the General Roman Calendar of 1960, in which the feast day is on November 12.

Kuntsevych's canonization process began in the interval of the January Uprising of 1863–1865 against the Russian Empire and was "understood in many circles, including Polish, Russian, and Ruthenian circles, as a papal gesture of moral support for the insurgent Poles." A Russophile Ruthenian newspaper, Slovo, published several negative articles about Kuntsevych. This antagonism to his canonization "makes sense within the context of the Russophile hegemony in Ruthenian public opinion" and was seen as insult to Imperial Russia. The Russian government responded, in 1875, with further Russification and forced conversion of the Eastern Catholic Chełm Eparchy, the last Eastern Catholic eparchy in the Russian Empire.

Veneration

According to The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Kuntsevych could be thought of as a patron "of ecumenical endeavour today."

St. Josaphat Kuntsevych is the patron saint of a number of Polish and Ukrainian churches and parishes in the United States and Canada including:

A group of Ukrainian Catholics, who oppose the changes made in the Ruthenian Rite to reduce Roman influence, have formed the Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat. They are linked to the Society of St. Pius X which has not recognized the authority of the Second Vatican Council.

There is a relic of the saint in the "catacombs" of Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church in Chicago.