Saint Josephat

Today the Church celebrates the memorial of St. Josaphat, a Catholic of the Ruthenian rite.   I have a great personal devotion to Saint Josaphat because, on my first trip to Rome I celebrated Mass on the altar where the saint is buried - the only non-Roman Catholic buried in Saint Peter's Basilica.  Born in the then Polish region of Lithuania of Orthodox parents, he became a Catholic and a Ukrainian Basilian monk.  Chosen bishop, he worked faithfully for the unity of the Church until he suffered martyrdom at the hands of an angry mob in Russia.

Josaphat Kuncewitcz was born about the year 1580 at Vladimir, Volhynia, [part of the Polish province of Lithuania at the time] and given the name John at baptism.  While being instructed as a child on the sufferings of our Savior, his heart is said to have been wounded by an arrow from the sacred side of the Crucified.  In 1604 he joined the Ukrainian Order of Saint Basil (Basilians), lived as a monk in a very mortified life, went barefoot even in winter, refrained from the use of wine and flesh-meat, and always wore a penitential garb.  In 1614 he was appointed archimandrite of Vilna, Russia and four years later archbishop of Polotzk; in this position he worked untiringly for Church reunion.  He was a great friend of the poor, once even pledged his archepiscopal omophorion (pallium) to support a poor widow.  The foes of union decided to assassinate him.  In a sermon, he himself spoke of his death as imminent.  When he visited Vitebsk (now in Russia), his enemies attacked his lodging and murdered a number of his companions.  Meekly the man of God hastened toward the mob and, full of love, cried, "My children, what are you doing?  If you have something against me, see, here I am."  With furious cries of "Kill the papist!", they rushed upon him with gun and sword.  Josaphat's body was thrown into the river but emerged, surrounded by rays of light, and was recovered. His murderers, when sentenced to death, repented their crime and became Catholics. 

Saint Josaphat's tomb under a side altar at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome where I had the opportunity to celebrate Mass on my first trip to Rome in 1997.