Cause of new martyrs of Russia heads to Rome
The 10 bishops, priests, religious and lay people were killed in odium fidei following the Bolshevik Revolution
The Catholic Archbishop of Moscow formally closed the diocesan phase of the cause of the new martyrs of Russia on Friday.
The martyrs, 10 Servants of God, were killed in odium fidei during the 20th century after the Bolshevik Revolution which led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The best known member is Bishop Antony Malecki, who died in Warsaw in 1935 after four years in Siberian forced labor camps.
In an address announcing the conclusion of the diocesan phase, Archbishop Paolo Pezzi, FSCB, of Moscow said that “the Soviet government and, in particular, the state security organs, sought to — falsely — accuse believers of crimes against the state and thus reduce to nothing the influence of faith on society.”
“However, faith is always, inevitably, also a judgment about the world and society in which believers live,” the archbishop said.
“These martyrs, these new apostles of the twentieth century, were able to establish new relationships among themselves, so that they could preach the Gospel… The experience of the unity of the new martyrs with Christ and among themselves offers us a concrete example in which the true image of Christian life is embodied, as well as the possibility of missionary work in any circumstances,” he added.
Alongside Bishop Malecki are the causes of Fr. Constantine Budkiewicz, Fr. Jan Trojgo, Fr. Pavel Chomicz, Fr. Frantiszek Budrys, Fr. Antony Czerwinski, Mother Catherine Abrikosova, O.P.L., laywoman Camilla Kruczelnicka, Bishop Karol Śliwowski, and Fr. Anthony Dzemeshkevich.
In 2021, three candidates, Fr. Epiphany Akulov, Fr. Potapy Emelianov, and Sr. Rosa of the Heart of Mary, O.P.L., were removed from the group, while the causes of three others, Fr. Andrej Tsikoto, Fr. Janis Mendriks, and Fr. Fabian Abrantovich, was put under the charge of the Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary in Poland.
In his address, Pezzi said that “for the martyrs, the mission is the awareness that they were sent into society to bear witness to the beauty and goodness of life in Christ… The testimonies from the camps, especially from Solovki, are very moving in this sense… The camp authorities understood this power, so that even if services were permitted, those belonging to different Churches were forbidden to pray and serve together.”
“Therefore, to bear witness means to tell people about our acquaintance with Christ and about our desire for His kingdom on earth, and also to draw them to the miracle of the communion of the Church, which by grace concretely exists in our lives,” he added.
The best known member of the group is Bishop Antony Malecki.
Malecki was born in Saint Petersburg to a Polish family in 1861. He was ordained a priest in 1884 and established an orphanage, which served over 400 poor children, and the first Polish school in Saint Petersburg in 1895.
His service in educating poor children earned him the nickname of “The Don Bosco of Saint Petersburg.”
In 1921 he became the rector of a clandestine seminary, which led to his arrest in 1923, and he was sentenced to three years in prison.
In 1926 Malecki returned to Saint Petersburg, by then renamed Leningrad. There, he was secretly consecrated bishop and made apostolic administrator of Leningrad by Bishop Michel d’Herbigny.
D’Herbigny had also been secretly consecrated bishop by the apostolic nuncio to Germany, Eugenio Pacelli (later Pius XII) by order of Pope Pius XI, who sent him to the Soviet Union to consecrate several bishops in Russia and secretly restore the country’s Catholic hierarchy.
In 1929, believing his arrest was imminent, Malecki secretly consecrated Fr. Theofilius Matulionis a bishop, one of his closest collaborators, but Matulionis was arrested before him.
In November 1930 Malecki was arrested by Soviet authorities, accused of subversive activity and of having relationships with the Catholic hierarchy abroad.
He was sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia.
In a letter during his exile he wrote:
"I live in a hut in the high mountains, overgrown with shrubs - where bears live on the beautiful bank of the Angara River; there is an opportunity to communicate with God in absolute solitude. At the end of my life, I wanted to settle somewhere in monastic silence. I found this corner, but so far away, far from everyone and from the work of the parish, so dear to me. There is not a single Catholic [...] Do the will of God! Live now, as in a monastery."
The Polish embassy got permission for the bishop to leave the USSR in February 1934, but Malecki was forced to walk part of the 100-mile route from the village where he was to Irkutsk, where he would be picked up.
A man who was sent to Irkutsk to pick up the bishop found him exhausted and delirious. He arrived in Warsaw ill and he died in January 1935 at the age of 73.
With the diocesan phase of the cause closed, the martyrs’ case will now move to Rome.
"There is not a single Catholic [...] Do the will of God! Live now, as in a monastery."
This reminds much of Fr. Ciszek's reflections on abandoning himself to Providence amidst the persecution and exile he suffered. That in turn reminds me of the Little Flower and de Caussade. Perhaps it was her rapid canonization that brought them into contact with her, if they were. I don't know. But if so, how readily God was prepping the world for things to come when He guided her to the Carmel.
Always interesting and edifying.
I wonder, in the article it is said that: "In 2021, three candidates, Fr. Epiphany Akulov, Fr. Potapy Emelianov, and Sr. Rosa of the Heart of Mary, O.P.L., were removed from the group". I wonder what caused it.