Happy New Year everyone,

Hi, I hope your New Year celebration was fun. May the freshness of the New Year rejuvenates and motivates you to start the year of 2002 with excitement and enthusiasm. We’ll start off this month’s issue with the wonderful news about the beatification of 4 Ukrainian Redemptorist Martyrs. They were beatified by Pope John Paul II on June 27, 2001 in Lviv, the capital of Ukraine, on his pastoral visit to this country last year. These holy people were persecuted, tortured and held prisoners yet they remained steadfast and proclaimed their faith until their death.

Dear friends, as we enter the year of 2002, may the martyrs’ shining faith be our inspiration to walk closer to Jesus on our spiritual journey. I pray that God will grant all of us the grace to be faithful to Him every moment of our life. May we start the New Year with a "childlike" trust and hope in God’s unending love and saving power. Be happy my friends, because you are very precious in God’s eyes and God loves you, yes you!

Remain in God’s peace & love my friends and please take good care of yourself. See you next time!

* Smile, God loves you, yes He does!

Healer of souls

Bishop and Martyr Mykola Charnetsky was born on 14 September 1884 in the village of Semakivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk District. After he completed his studies at the local seminary and in Rome he was ordained to the priesthood in 1909. He obtained his doctorate in Dogmatic Theology from Rome and became a spiritual director and professor at the seminary in Ivano-Frankivsk. In 1919 he entered the novitiate of the Redemptorist Fathers in Lviv and in 1926 he was appointed apostolic visitator for Ukrainian Catholics in Volyn, Polissia, Kholm and Pidliashshia. A model religious and missionary, he zealously worked for the union of the Holy Church. He was ordained to the episcopacy by Bishop Hryhory Khomyshyn in Rome on 2 February 1931. He was arrested by the NKVD (KGB) on 11 April 1945 and sentenced to six years of hard labor in Siberia. According to official data he underwent 600 hours of interrogation and torture and spent time in 30 different prisons and camps. Terminally ill, in 1956 he was permitted to return to western Ukraine where he secretly continued to fulfill his episcopal obligations. In the midst of the cruelty and oppression which he suffered in imprisonment and in exile, he was distinguished for his evangelical patience, gentleness and limitless goodness; already during his life he was considered a holy man.

Worthy Acting Head

Bishop and Martyr Vasyl Velychkovsky was born 1 June 1903 in Ivano-Frankivsk. In 1920 he entered the seminary in Lviv. In 1925 in Holosko, near Lviv, he took his first religious vows in the Order of the Most Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorists) and was ordained a priest. Fr. Basil became a missionary in Volyn. In 1942 he became the hegumen (prior) of the monastery in Ternopil, where he was arrested in 1945. He was then taken to Kyiv. His death sentence was soon commuted to ten years of imprisonment and hard labor. He returned to Lviv in 1955, where he continued his pastoral work. In 1963 he was secretly ordained an archbishop in a Moscow hotel by Metropolitan Josyf Slipyj, who, on his way to exile in Rome, passed Bishop Vasyl the responsibility for the catacomb Church. Predicting his own possible arrest, he ordained new underground bishops in 1964, among whom was his successor, Archbishop Volodymyr Sterniuk, who eventually led the Church out of the underground. In 1969 Bishop Vasyl was arrested a second time but after three years of imprisonment he was deported outside the USSR.

He died in Winnepeg, Canada on 30 June 1973 as a consequence of serious heart disease which began when he was in prison.

Fearless preacher

Priest and Martyr Father Zenoviy Kovalyk was born on August 18, 1903 in the village of Ivakhiv near Ternopil. He entered the Congregation of the Redemptorists and on 28 August 1926 he made his religious vows. His philosophical and theological education was received in Belgium. He returned to Ukraine and on 4 September 1937 was ordained to the priesthood. He served as a missionary in Volyn. On 20 December 1940 he was arrested in church while giving a homily. After terrible tortures he was murdered by the Communists in a mock crucifixion against a wall in a prison on Zamarstynivska Street, in Lviv in June 1941.

He died a martyr for the faith.

"[His] sermons made an incredible impression on the listeners. But in the prevailing system of denunciations and terror this was very dangerous for a preacher. So I often tried to convince Father Kovalyk . that he needed to be more careful about the content of his sermons, that he shouldn't provoke the Bolsheviks, because here was a question of his own safety. But it was all in vain. Father Kovalyk only had one answer: 'If that is God's will, I will gladly accept death, but as a preacher I will never act against my conscience.'"-- From the memories of Yaroslav Levytskyi

Suffered on Good Friday

Martyr and Priest Father Ivan Ziatyk was born on 26 December 1899 in the village of Odrekhiv, near Syanok. After finishing his theology studies in Przemysl seminary in 1923 he was ordained to the priesthood. In 1935 he entered the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists). He was a teacher of Dogmatic Theology and Holy Scripture, and also known as a good administrator. During the Nazi occupation he was acting superior of the monastery in Ternopil and later in Zboiski near Lviv. On 5 January 1950 he was arrested, found guilty of "preaching the ideas of the Pope of Rome regarding the spread of the Catholic faith among nations of the whole world." At first he was imprisoned in Zolochiv and later was sent to Ozerlah, Irkhutsk region, Russia. In all he lived through 72 interrogations. On Good Friday in 1952 he was severely beaten, drenched with water and left to lie in the cold.

He died in the prison infirmary on 17 May 1952 a martyr for the faith.

"He stood and prayed the whole day; for whole days he prayed every moment. He was such a pleasant person to talk to. You could hear many wise and instructive words from him; this was especially so in my case, as at that time I was a youngster." -- From an interview with fellow prisoner Anatolii Medelian.