Saint of the Day

June 30: Blessed Basil Velychkovskyi

Blessed Basil Velychkovskyi (1903-1973) was born in the Ukraine into a Greek Catholic family. He became a priest, teacher, and missionary in his native country.

In 1945, he was arrested by the Soviets for being a Catholic priest and sentenced to ten years in a forced labor camp. He served his fellow prisoners during his imprisonment and somehow survived its inhuman conditions.

When he was allowed to return to the Ukraine in 1955, he became bishop and then archbishop of the underground Greek Catholic Church there. In 1969, he was arrested again, this time for listening to Vatican Radio and for his Catholic faith, both of which were crimes under Communist rule. He was tortured during his imprisonment, but when his health began to fail, he was released. (Based on Soviet attitudes toward Catholics, this was probably less out of compassion than a desire not to make him a martyr to the many Ukrainian Catholics.) He was sent out of the country and traveled to Rome and then Canada, where he died in 1973.

Blessed Basil, give me your perseverance.